Why I Love Today's Papers

As some of you may know in a past life I did 'the clips' for a Texas-based public affairs firm. Back in my day the clips process involved taking the hard copies of the major national and Texas newspapers, reading through them looking for relevant stories on the firm's clients, cutting out the important articles, and then photocopying them into massive tree-killing 40-50 page packets. All before 8:30 in the morning when the head honchos strolled into the office.

While it was generally a pain-in-the-ass intern-type job it was an incredible way to see how the daily news plays out, get a true sense of what the term 'pack journalism' means, and learn some of the subtle differences between the major dailies.

For my money, nothing comes closer to giving you the same broad view of what's in the news (without getting newsprint all over your hands) than Slate's incomparable Today's Papers. On most days TP's rotating crew of writers gives you get a great dose of how the majors are covering the day's top stories but occasionally you get the kind of insight that only a true clip monkey can appreciate. Exhibit A from today's TP:

The main thing to keep an eye out for in dispatches about military offensives isn't anything in the stories themselves. It's the datelines. The LAT is the only one of the Big Five filing from the Marines' battle. The difference in coverage is stark.

With their reporters presumably stuck in Baghdad, the other papers basically channel military spokesmen accounts. Skepticism does not abound, nor does careful sourcing. "MARINES KILL 100 FIGHTERS IN SANCTUARY NEAR SYRIA," announces the Post. That figure has issues. As you might notice, most of the papers' stories actually cite "as many as" 100 insurgents killed. (Kind of like TP is "as much as" 6ft. tall). Then turn to the LAT, which quotes the commander in the field puzzling over the hundred figure and saying "a couple of dozen" insurgents were probably killed.

That's only the beginning of the differences.

So unless you had the time to read the top Iraq stories in the WP, NYT, WSJ, USAT, and LAT you probably wouldn't have realized that everyone except the LAT is just publishing Pentagon press releases.

Not only does Today's Papers give readers a nice view of how the dailies stack up, on rare occasions we also get a nice bit of sarcastic editorializing:

Newish NYT op-ed columnist John Tierney bemoans the overwhelming coverage of suicide bombings in Iraq and elsewhere:

If a man-bites-dog story is news and dog-bites-man isn't, why are journalists still so interested in man-blows-up-self stories? I'm not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers.

There were three car bombs in Baghdad yesterday, killing at least six people. The NYT gives the attacks the most attention. That is, it mentions all three—devoting a single sentence to them.

Hats off to Today's Papers for consistently providing us former clip junkies with enough of a fix to avoid going into withdrawal.