A Truly Local Paper

The Daily News surprised me this morning with its endorsement of Obama for President.

It's safe to say the paper's editorial stance has leaned more toward the right as of late. Some of that might have emanated from its affiliation with the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, a staunch GOP newspaper.

I couldn't believe any relation of the Trib would endorse a Democratic nominee. I certainly couldn't see the Trib wandering far enough off the reservation to endorse a supposed socialist.

And I was right. The Trib endorsed McCain a few days ago.

But our local paper saw things differently. Anyone familiar with this blog might guess that I agree with the Daily News' conclusion. I'm an Obama guy. You'll see me (and 1,000 other people) driving around Newburyport in a Subaru with an Obama magnet plastered on my car's tail.

While I'm pleased the local paper's opinion fell in line with my own, I'm even more excited by the realization that our Daily News has such a great degree of editorial autonomy, particularly with such a high profile endorsement.

The conflicting endorsements clearly show that the News not only is free from the Trib's influence, but that Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., which owns both papers, didn't issue a chain wide endorsement.

This is good news for the local guys. Truth be told, I was never really got comfortable with the Eagle Tribune's (or Evil Tribune as we called it back in The Day we competed for stories) ownership of the Daily News.

I still saw that paper as the competition, although I acknowledge the fiscal wisdom behind the roll up of local papers.

I certainly wasn't happy with all the changes made after the acquisition, but I concede that the deal led to the introduction of nice and talented folks (who aren't evil at all) to the pages of the Daily News.

But I just never liked thinking our local folks had to take marching orders from someplace else. The endorsement makes it clear that they don't.

Nice to see.