What America's Tiniest Papers Think About Iraq

By: Ari Berman "We don't really have an editorial page," said Jim Stoute, news editor of the Blackwell (Okla.) Journal-Tribune, daily circulation 2,513. "We're lucky to have a front page and an obit page." Noted Terri Hacket, news editor of the Macon (Mo.) Chronicle-Herald, daily circulation 2,545, "Associated Press is our only link to the outside world."

After four weekly E&P surveys examining the 50 largest-circulation newspapers' editorial views on the Iraq crisis gained wide notice, we launched a grassroots mission -- to discover what the nation's 50 smallest-circulation papers thought about a possible war. These views from the heartland largely come from "Red" (pro-Bush) states. Of the 50 smallest papers, 18 are in Kansas or Oklahoma. Seventeen other papers, besides those in Kansas, are in the Midwest.

Turns out, very few of them are even opining on Iraq, let alone taking hard-and-fast stances, either hawkish, as does The Wall Street Journal, or dovish, like The Sun in Baltimore. Only five of the tiniest 50 have published editorials of any sort on the subject.

Joe Novak, editor of the 2,051-circulation Hugo (Okla.) Daily News, told us, "I'm personally 70% for the war, 30% against." This sounds remarkably like The New York Times lately.

"Although we're in the southern part of Illinois, which the East and West Coasts might call a 'war-mongering' area, there's been very little discussion over the war," Eldorado Daily Journal Managing Editor Terry Geese said of the 1,103-circulation paper. "People write letters mostly focusing on bad drivers."

In contrast, the Bisbee (Ariz.) Daily Review, the smallest general-interest daily in the United States, with a circulation struggling to reach four digits, has actively chronicled the march to war. Bisbee is 25 miles from Fort Huachuca, where the Army's 11th Signal Brigade (1,200) outnumbers the paper's circulation (985). Although close to the troops, the town of Bisbee has had two peace rallies in the last month and the Daily Review remains skeptical of mammoth nation-building efforts of the kind that would be needed in a postwar Iraq. "While we may want to export capitalism and freedom throughout the world," it editorialized, "attempting to mold nations in our image is a false step."

In fact, most of the editors who have expressed views show the same kind of doubt about the war voiced by many at the larger papers.

The Dowagiac (Mich.) Daily News, circulation 1,818, wrote on March 3, "After failing to smoke out Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, we [the Bush administration] just changed the subject and pretended to forget their influence in their being a war on terrorism in the first place."

The Goodland (Kan.) Daily News, circulation 2,004, was equally forthright. "As we contemplate the flying of bombs and bullets, there is an uneasy feeling in our stomach at what the conflict may cost in lives. There is a need to convince the people of the country that this action is necessary and the right thing to do."

The Lyons (Kan.) Daily News (circulation 2,321), on the other hand, took the opportunity Feb. 6 to pummel the "elite," Franco/German, anti-American media. Such an editorial would fit snugly in the pages of the New York Post (circulation 590,061).

As E&P dug deeper for answers -- we're still waiting for The Tiller & Toiler (circulation 1,434) in Larned, Kan., to return our calls -- we found a few more surprises. Jon Fulbright, editor of the 1,971-circulation Pecos (Texas) Enterprise blurted out: "I know E&P. My father worked there from 1968 to 1970."

But at least this survey was easy to complete. Last month, the Houston Chronicle transferred me to four different departments before finally faxing an editorial (three days later), addressed to "R.A. Burnham." But now, when I called the Council Grove (Kan.) Republican, circulation 2,150, and asked for the editor, the secretary put down the phone and hollered, "Crrrraig!" Within five seconds, the editor was on the line with what was now familiar news: "We don't have an editorial page."

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See E&P's complete coverage of Iraq and the Press.