Progressive Wednesday

How to Read Newspapers Progressively

February 13th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday

Do you really need us to suggest checking out the best of the best — the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and Washington Times and Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times and St. Petersburg Times? We thought not. So make some progress, baby, and allows us to make a trio of recommendations:

1. Your local newspaper or papers rock in their own local way. This probably falls under the category of “Duh,” but humor us. To help progressive causes, reading your local papers seems key to us. If you can’t afford a subscription, most papers have websites these days with the majority of the content available online. Because we’ll be suggesting typing up letters to the editor on specific subjects, an awareness of the style and content of the opinion page in your hometown Picayune, Chronicle, Journal, Post, Echo, Gazette, News, Observer, Herald (you get the idea) will help.

2. Getting a flavor for other areas of the country seems like a good move to us; we read parts of five newspapers each day to find interesting progressive news for y’all (and us, too). Maybe read a few articles online from one newspaper not from your time zone. Here’s one we give mad props from each general area of the country:

• New England: Providence Journal-Bulletin
• Northeast: The New York Observer
• Midwest: Star Tribune
• Great Plains: The Forum
• South: Orlando Sentinel
• Southwest¹: Las Vegas Review-Journal
• Rockies: The Idaho Statesman
• West Coast: The Oregonian

There’s always a special place in our hearts for the Buffalo News, Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls Reporter, and Art Voice — the four newspapers available in Western New York. So, if you’re pining for the 411 of our rather snow-soaked area, check those suckers out.

3. You might be wondering: Mr. Z and Big E, where, pray tell, might I find a rather complete list of newspapers throughout this red, white and blue land of ours? Well, my friend, the website 50 States, in addition to cataloguing the various state birds, mottos, and trees, also has an exhaustive compilation of the places where you can find the news that’s fit (and sometimes, you know, rather unfit) to print. Check it here.

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One last thing: please, please, please feel free to forward us links to interesting articles and snippets that demonstrate progressive successes through our Contact page. We appreciate it big time in advance.

¹ We of the Blizzard of ’77 hear that the Southwest has a “dry heat.”

Photo thanks to this dude.

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