Good afternoon,
It wasn’t hard to miss the headline ‘The world’s most popular local paper.’
The Politico newsletter post was referring to the News Journal/Delaware Online, with the headline heading over the top in describing the fact that President Joe Biden remains a subscriber.
The Politico piece was more nuanced than the headline might suggest. Interviewed were former and current News Journal staffers who do not place the president on a pedestal.
Insights included Biden’s election campaign not always responding to requests from the Delaware paper. (I know the feeling from a futile attempt to get on the media list).
Most reporters and editors did not believe the long-time U.S. Senator from Delaware would occupy the White House.
There was a time when it was believed that former Gov. Pete duPont, who passed away recently, had a better shot. That never happened after duPont’s presidential effort ran aground in the early primaries.
After arriving in Delaware three decades ago, the talk among reporters and business people centered on Biden’s health scare and a plagiarized speech from a British political leader. The speech scandal helped sink his presidential bid.
Throughout the decades, the News Journal covered Biden’s presence in the Senate and relationships with the state’s elite.
No one is better explaining these ties than News Journal alum, Delaware resident, and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Joe DiStefano. Retired News Journal business reporter Maureen Milford also had a knack for connecting the dots.
During the Obama era, local coverage of Biden sometimes focused on his surprising celebrity status, with NJ stories letting us know about satirical posts on the Onion site. One memorable piece portrayed the vice president as a Pontiac Firebird-driving, beer-drinking, wild man. Biden, a non-drinker, owns a Corvette but does not wash his car shirtless.
Biden changed over the years, as did the News Journal.
The influence of the newspaper over civic life in the state has shrunk, as has the staff size.
It now treads a fine line between crime-accident posts, press release rewrites, and lengthy subscriber-only pieces that focus on weighty issues such as poverty and race.
An opinion page that irritated movers and shakers is largely nonexistent when it comes to in-house viewpoints. Much of the content comes from parent company Gatehouse-Gannett or local guest pieces.
Biden is now viewed in many circles as the wise adult in the room who managed to get past the 100-day mark of his presidency in good shape.
With Biden in the Oval Office, the News Journal emerged as an advertising paper of record, with special interest groups doing more lobbying via full-page ads.
No, The News Journal is not the most influential local paper in the world by a long shot.
But the odds are good that the president, who grew up in the print era and returns to Delaware nearly every weekend, scans the pages at least a few days a week. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
