Unlike the world of professional athletics, however, there's
no Green Bay at the top of the newspaper circulation world.
Researchers won't find one of the 20 top-selling newspapers
in places such as Nome, Alaska, or Laramie, Wyo.
The figures change slightly from year to year, but the
consistently top newspapers in the United States emerge from a group that
includes city-bred giants such as The Wall Street Journal, USAToday, The
New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York
Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Dallas Morning News, The Houston
Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, the Detroit Free
Press, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger.
As evidence, I offer the latest
list of ``Leading U.S. Daily Newspapers'' from the 1997 World Almanac, which
shows these big-city dailies as the top 10: 1) Wall Street Journal; 2) USA
Today; 3) The New York Times; 4) Los Angeles Times; 5) Washington Post;
6) New York Daily News; 7) Chicago Tribune; 8) Newsday; 9) Houston Chronicle;
and 10) Detroit Free Press.
Polls of Americans' favorite newspapers consistently draw
from the same pool. Every so often a newspaper with a particular bent will
break into a list of favorites, but generally speaking, the world of top
newspapers is a big-city, big-circulation world.
As newspaper analyst Leo Bogart says, ``Journalism is an
urban art.''
At the other end of the headlines is the American hometown
newspaper. Americans from places such as Muncie, Ind., Rutland, Vt., or
Missoula, Mont., are intensely loyal to their local newspapers.
Nevertheless, it is axiomatic
that small town newspapers will never compete with their big-city cousins.
Until they hit the Internet.
A recent poll of favorite news sites on the World Wide
Web conducted by the American Journalism Review (AJR) produced both surprising
and interesting results.
According to Editor and Publisher, the professional bible
of journalism, there are about 1,500 news sites on the World Wide Web currently.
That's roughly the same figure -- plus or minus a hundred or so -- for the
number of daily newspapers being published in the nation.
A comparison of the AJR's poll
and the Almanac's list highlights these figures:
+The Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer, one of the pioneering
online newspapers known as NandO Times, ranks fifth among the hottest web
sites of 1996. Among the top 100 U.S. newspapers, the Raleigh newspaper
ranks 78th.
+Eighth in the survey of hot web sites is the San Jose Mercury News, which publishes a daily print version that ranks 34th on the list of leading newspapers.
+Another California daily, the Sacramento Bee, which is
34th on the leading newspaper list, ranks 18th among popular Web sites.
+The Washington Times, the conservative ``other'' paper
in the nation's capital subsidized by the Unification Church, doesn't even
appear on the list of 100 leading newspapers, but its WWW site ranks 10th
in popularity.
+The Honolulu Star Bulletin, ranked 100th among the 100
leading daily print newspapers, is online as the 20th most popular journalism
site.
+The Christian Science Monitor and the Las Vegas Sun, both
of which do not appear among the 100 leading newspapers, rank 21st and 24th
among online newspapers.
+Of the top 15 news sites on the WWW, three are foreign
sites (Jerusalem Post, Times of London, Telegraph of London), one is a news
service (Reuters NewMedia), and two others are primarily broadcast operations
(CNN and ESPN). CNN Interactive ranked number one among online journalism
resources.
+Five of the leading U.S. dailies make the top 15 Web sites:
The Washington Post (2nd); USA Today (3rd); The New York Times (4th); The
Wall Street Journal (6th); and the Detroit News (14th). The Detroit News
ranks 23rd among leading print dailies, and it is the highest-ranked evening
circulating newspaper.
At least for the time being, these polls clearly indicate
that the Internet is an equalizer that allows newspapers from places such
as Raleigh, N.C., and San Jose, Calif., to compete with the sluggers from
the major megapolises of the nation.
By making a strong commitment
to electronic delivery of the news, a paper such as the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
has boosted itself into the top 20 news deliverers while its print version
lags in 100th position. Papers like this are hoping advertisers take notice
and support the electronic exposure.
Total numbers and revenue figures make this kind of comparison
premature and speculative. The number of Americans committed to news via
the Internet pales in comparison to the readers of the printed newspapers,
and the income from advertising on the Internet has yet to prove profitable
to an industry that is used to making a 12- to 20-percent profit each year.
Electronic -- or interactive -- journalism, however, is
proving more than a fad, as news organizations across the nation carve niches
in the World Wide Web.
No one can predict where this
phenomenon is carrying journalism, but for the current season the smallest
publication with an intelligent and informative Web presence can make the
urban giants tremble.
Green Bay spoke volumes for small-town America against
the big-city dudes in the National Football League last season.
In journalism, the Pack is back too, and it's comprised of all those Green Bays, Nomes, Laramies, Raleighs and www.newspaper.coms who have discovered the urban-blind playing field of the Internet.