The Cleveland Plain Dealer was criticized recently for its publisher's decision to overturn the editorial board's decision to endorse Kerry. Don't know if that made national news but it was big down here. Originally the Publisher was going to not only ignore it but go the other way and make the paper endorse Bush (even the board put together to come up with this decision voted 7-2 in favor of Kerry). They ended up not endorsing anyone for President, trying to take the high road and say that it isn't a paper's job to make such recommendations (though they have endorsed someone for every other office it can).
That isn't the question, though. I bring this up because there are some real concerns with the goings on behind the scenes there. Last night, a Judge overturned a lower court decision that would have prevented partisan Challengers to be a part of polling stations in Ohio. The lower court said that it was the job of the Election's Board to make decisions, not political parties. That was struck down and now mostly inner city precincts are being looked at by Republican party challengers.
What I bring this up for is that in my inner-ring Cleveland suburb, this was front page news. Top of the page. Made national news last night, as well.
In the innercity edition of the same paper in the neighborhood I work, that article wasn't on the front page at all.
I thought this was an odd editorial decision to omit an article of such potential importance in the part of the city where it would most likely be an issue.
Do other papers do this sort of changes? I know interior sections of the paper might change due to local neighborhood issues but I have never heard of two different front pages to the same paper released at the same time.
Just a thought. More head scratching in this curious and more curious election.