Newspaper Nicknames: The Good, the Bad and the Scatological (FR Mentioned)

Poynter Online ^ | October 28, 2003 | Chip Scanlon

[Timesink]

Poynteronline
Posted, Oct. 28, 2003
Updated, Oct. 28, 2003

Newspaper Nicknames: The Good, the Bad and the Scatological
By Chip Scanlan (more by author)

I began my newspaper career at The Milford Shitizen.

After several years toiling for small community newspapers, I finally hit the big time. I landed a reporting job with a major metropolitan daily, the Providence Urinal.

After eight years, I moved on again — this time to sunny Florida and the staff of the St. Petersburg Pravda.

Most newspapers have another identity, usually a pejorative one, in addition to the one gracing the front page nameplate.

Sometimes they're an inside joke, the play on words providing an escape valve for staff frustration.

But in my experience, the source of a nasty nickname is more than likely customer-based -- disaffected readers and viewers who christen their local news organs with monikers selected to highlight perceived journalistic failings.

Consider the recent posting on FreeRepublic.com, which bills itself as a "Conservative News Forum."

To bash St. Petersburg Times columnist Willliam Maxwell, a poster named "dawn53" trotted out a familiar nickname for my old paper, the publication that lands at my door every morning, the one owned, it should be noted, by The Poynter Institute which depends on its success to fulfill our mission "to teach and inspire journalists and media leaders." 

That Maxwell is a liberal is an understatement. He writes for one of the most liberal papers in the country, the St. Petersburg Pravda (Times).

Renaming newspapers is a national pastime. (I imagine a similar tradition exists in broadcast news.) Witness this admittedly incomplete litany gleaned from an informal survey of reporters and editors gathered last week for a Poynter seminar:

The Dallas Morning Snooze

The Gnarley Trombone

The Indiana Daily Stupid

Ravenna Wretched Courier

The Daily Repeater-Herald

Virginian Pile-it-on

The Daily Salt Mine

Newspaper nicknames have their value. They toughen our skin against slings and arrows, always useful in a field where newbies are routinely advised, "If you want to be liked, you're in the wrong business."

And I always like to point out that there's an advantage to starting out at a paper known fondly around town as "The Shitizen." From there, everything's uphill.

[ What nasty names do folks call your newspaper or station? ]

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http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=52802

[Consort]

Daily Worker = Daily Worker

[an amused spectator]

Apparently he teaches psychology.

Ah, yes - psychology, one of the "hard" sciences.

Molecules have feelings, too! ;-)

[Igraine]

I can't believe no one's mentioned the Portland Oregonian, which parodies itself.

[swilhelm73]

CBS - Clinton Broadcasting Service
CNN - Clinton News Network
ABC - All Bill Clinton
NBC - Nothing But Clinton

Hmm, I spent some time trying to come up with one for the Boston Globe without much luck. Perhaps that's because it simply the best bird cage liner made in America?

[ArrogantBustard]

Washington Times = The Moonie Paper
Washington Post = The Commie Paper
Washington City Paper = The $#!++y Paper

[Timesink]

Back in the day, ABC used to be known as the "Almost Broadcasting Company" because it had a substantially weaker network of affiliates than NBC and CBS.

[dogbyte12]

That reminds me of when Fox was in the same boat. It's first "hit" Married with Children, spoofed it, when they decided to watch FOX on the tv, and they had to hold out wires, coat hangers, and foil, to "assume the FOX watching positions".

[Timesink]

Don't forget USA TOADY!

[uglybiker]

a.k.a. Arizona Soviet Socialist Republic.

[hollywood]

"...who christen their local news organs with monikers selected to highlight perceived journalistic failings."

"Gee, Ollie, what did he mean by that? I'm too stupid to understand anything that I read." (/Stanley dumbass act).

Hey, Chip Stanley, if you read this, understand that it is not only perceived journalistic failings that we rail against, it's confirmed ones. Funny how you (Chip) didn't pick up on the other, real message in the FR thread that you referenced.

[Atlas Sneezed]

The Portland "Boregonian"
The Reno "Gaggette-Journal"
The Minneapolis "Red Star" Tribune

[Timesink]

US Snooze and World Distort

[speedy]

Whatever happened to The Huron Analysis? What can you do with a name like Times-Picayune? And has anyone really been able to say "I'm Brown from The Sun?"

[Timesink]

Whatever happened to The Huron Analysis?

I've never heard of that one. Google pulls up nothing.

What can you do with a name like Times-Picayune?

The Slimes-Pick-On-You?

[Tall_Texan]

"Austin American Statesboy"

We call ours The Austin Real-Estatesman.

Weak. It is the "Anti-American Statesman" or you could call it the "Amateur-Statesman" or you could call it what it really is, the "Democrat House Organ".

[Tall_Texan]

I'm immediately suspicious of any grown man who still goes by schoolyard names like "Buzz", "Chip", "Skip", "Booger", etc. Time to move on with life, guys...

8 posted on 10/28/2003 9:45 AM CST by Tall_Texan [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

More proof...

[dawn53]

Thanks for letting me know.

I'm famous!!!

[L.N. Smithee]

The San Francisco Comical and the San Francisco Excreminer.

[Billthedrill]

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a.k.a "The P-U"

I used "Propaganda-Intelligencer" once in a letter and their competition, the Times, printed it.

[CIBvet]

Conservative folks around Alaska many times refer to the Anchorage daily News as "The Daily Worker" due to it's far far left liberal-socialist leaning.

But after an especially sarcastic and arrogant remark they wrote into an article on our 4th of July parade, which included a float with some old WWII and Korean Vets, I replied with a scathing Letter to the Editor referring to them as "The McClatchy Commie Daily."

The young pinko wire-rewriter who contacted me seemed to take offense at my term for her company, and did manage to stall publishing my Letter for almost 2wks, but I steadfastly refused to alter it one iota.

I use the term in polite conversation around town every chance I get, to the amusement of many, and to those who flinch, I make note.

The McClatchy Publishing empire includes:

The Anchorage Daily (Worker)
The Fresno Bee
The Modesto Bee
The Sacramento Bee
The Star-Tribune in Minn-St.Paul
The News Tribune in Tacoma, WA
The News & Observer in Raleigh, NC
The Tri-City Herald in Kennewick, WA

The McClatchy Commie tentacles extended into the South in 1990 when it acquired three dailies in South Carolina: The Herald in Rock Hill, The Island Packet in Hilton Head, and The Beaufort Gazette.

Readers ... BEWARE !!