Each morning I get the front pages of a set of papers assembled for me by a script I wrote a few months back. I’ve picked hometown papers (Minneapolis, Cleveland, Oshkosh, Boston, Vienna) plus a few big names (NYT, WSJ). I just glance at these to get a sense of the world around me.
The last two days, the Oshkosh paper has really puzzled me. We are going through the biggest financial meltdown in at least the last 20 years and there is no mention on the front page. Even Vienna talks about it. Not Oshkosh. I knew small town America could be isolated, but this seems downright weird. Does anyone have any idea why? Is the paper owned by some odd breed of conservative who does not feel like Wall Street woes have an impact on small town folk?
Note, today they devote almost the whole front page to a McCain/Palin rally, still not a word about the massive bailouts in the offing.
Here are my front pages for Thursday and Friday (warning, these are large files, around 5MB each). See what I mean?