The top news out here shows no occurrences in the presidential primaries. St. Patrick’s Day preview, gas prices, salmon shortages, and gender roles in sex scandals.
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The Edge of the American West 
10 comments
March 12, 2008 at 7:07 am
Megan
I like those priorities. Rising gas prices will matter more to people than another primary. They should know why gas prices have gone up 15% in a month. The salmon are a huge natural disaster happening in the rivers that define the region. Why? What is going on? The gender role stuff I could do without, but it obviously rivets other people.
My sense is that you disapprove, but it isn’t obvious to me that one more primary is more important than the stories they chose.
March 12, 2008 at 7:33 am
ari
I won’t speak for the man, but I’m not sure he disapproved of the Bee‘s priorities. I think, maybe, this was another way of looking at regional variation. Or at least that’s how I read it.
March 12, 2008 at 7:37 am
eric
Ari can speak for me any time. Actually, it occurred to me it might be worth a running series on what our paper thinks is important here.
March 12, 2008 at 7:42 am
Megan
Shoot. You were all nice and reasonable. I was composing a really funny post about how you were wrong on this and how it symbolized EVERYTHING. I should never check first before I post.
March 12, 2008 at 7:45 am
ari
You should post anyway. As long as you link to us. Becasue we’re desparate for attention. Thus my new blogging gambit: more cat boxing. (Don’t tell B. She’ll get really mad.)
March 12, 2008 at 7:47 am
eric
No, it was really just by way of showing that we do live on the edge of the American West, and that regional variations (as in Ari’s previous post) matter.
March 12, 2008 at 7:48 am
Megan
You should go the extra step and point out that everyone else is wrong. That’s what thorough bloggers do.
March 12, 2008 at 8:12 am
ari
At first I thought Eric was holding someone’s fingers hostage. And the paper was a way of proving that the fingers are still alive today.
March 12, 2008 at 9:13 am
PorJ
Local editors are getting squeezed on editorial decision-making like never before. The reason those stories appear in the order they appear may have nothing to do with “new value” and everything to do with the new values in journalism (i.e.: hyper-local news-you-use is the key). Newspapers are dying, and in their death-throes they are becoming more alike….
If you don’t believe me, pop on over to Readership.org , Northwestern University’s attempt to keep papers afloat…. In particular, go to this page (“Reports”) and scroll down to the PowerPoint titled, “Success Stories, 2006.” You’ll find what your newspaper will look like soon…..
(For those who don’t want to click through – the newspaper industry is no longer about delivering information, etc., its about “Readership Experiences”- people want information about themselves, health & travel info, and “water cooler” or esoteric stories. They don’t want Iraq or other downers- unless it touches them personally, immediately, and daily: like gas prices). Politics doesn’t sell particularly well either, unless its scandal or can be framed to their immediate experience).
March 12, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
Here’s an idea for a new feature for EOTAW: list the top three stories above the fold in the Sacramento Bee. Then readers can chime in with what’s cooking in their own town’s daily. The variations and omissions of the mix have got to mean SOMETHING, especially within a historical context. We can figure it all out in comments.
I’ll start. The Honolulu Advertiser has about half the circulation of the Bee (142K vs. 280K). Today’s top three stories above the fold here are: 1) an article about a new “super diploma” being offered by state high schools; 2) local high school students demonstrating at the state capitol for air-conditioned classrooms (take THAT you folks in snow country; and 3) Adm. Fallon’s resignation as top military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan. This last one is really more a local story than not because Fallon’s last duty assignment was here in Hawaii, so he’s considered a local boy. (But NOT a “local” boy.)
I guess outside of the NYT, WaPo , and other big city dailies, local papers focus primarily on local and regional happenings. So, I’m not sure how much we should divine from front-page stories reading the pulse of the nation.
BTW, there’s no mention of St. Pat’s Day in the Advertiser, and that gets my Irish up!