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An Oklahoma Newspaper Endorsed Clinton. It Hasn’t Been Forgiven
NY Times ^ | 12/27/2016 | Manny Fernandez

Posted on 12/27/2016 8:01:03 AM PST by usafa92

ENID, Okla. — One Sunday after church, Jeff Mullin and his wife were in line at the Western Sizzlin steakhouse here when a man, fists clenched, threatened to beat the hell out of him.

“My first thought was just to kind of try to keep things calm. Otherwise, it was going to be two old guys rolling around on the floor of the steakhouse, and that would be pretty unseemly,” recalled Mr. Mullin, 64, the mustachioed senior writer for Enid’s daily newspaper, The Enid News & Eagle.

The dispute was not personal. It was, of all things, editorial.

Mr. Mullin’s red newspaper in a red county in what is arguably the reddest of states went blue this campaign season and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. The editorial board, in a gray-shaded column on Page A4 on Oct. 9, wrote that Donald J. Trump lacked “the skills, experience or temperament to hold office.” The headline and subhead read: “For U.S. president: Hillary Clinton is our choice for commander in chief.”

It was the first Democratic endorsement for president in the modern history of the newspaper, which was founded in 1893. As the man’s reaction at the steakhouse suggested, Enid was stunned, and this slow-paced agricultural town of 52,000 near the Kansas state line has not been the same since.

The News & Eagle, with a circulation of 10,000, lost 162 subscribers who canceled the paper. Eleven advertisers pulled their ads, including a funeral home that had a sizable account. Someone stuck a “Crooked Hillary” bumper sticker on the glass doors of the paper’s downtown office. A man left a late-night message on the publisher’s voice mail, expressing his hope that readers would deliver, to put it delicately, a burning sack of steaming excrement to the paper.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Oklahoma
KEYWORDS: 2016endorsements; clinton; news; oklahoma; redstates; trump
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To: usafa92

People have a right to not buy a newspaper. Advertisers have a right to not buy ads in a newspaper.

Compare that to the behavior of the Trump-haters, like students and Breyn Mawr running a Trump-supporter out of school.

Big difference.


21 posted on 12/27/2016 8:19:42 AM PST by samtheman (Voted Trump)
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To: usafa92

The editorial board is perfectly in their rights to endorse whom they choose. However the idiocy of endorsing Clinton is eclipsed by lack of awareness of their friends and neighbors reaction.

The idea that Mr. Trump, for all his flaws has fewer of “the skills, experience or temperament to hold office” than Hillary Clinton, is laughable on its face. That is pure inside the beltway/establishment thinking, that demonstrated a tin ear regarding how unpopular Mrs. Clinton was in Oklahoma.

That aside, there was no reason to anyone to get angry, just cancel your subscription and move on. People who endorsed Clinton are not worth the energy it takes to think about them.


22 posted on 12/27/2016 8:20:03 AM PST by drop 50 and fire for effect ("Work relentlessly, accomplish much, remain in the background, and be more than you seem.)
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To: usafa92
The Hillsboro Argus (suburban Portland Oregon) was purchased over a decade ago by the Portland Oregonian.
The Oregonian had gone from slightly left-of-center to hard-left during the previous 20 years, while the Argus had remained right-wing (in its editorials). The slant of the Argus changed immediately to left-ish and subscriptions dropped markedly, though the population of the area was expanding exponentially. Now the printed Argus is dead and gone, while the Oregonian is barely hanging on. Part is doubtless due to the general reduction in printed newspaper, but the loyal Argus subscribers would have continued for years, were it not for the immediate and drastic shift in editorial content. The NYT article continues in the same vein as the election coverage, in that we deplorables need to get with the program and accept the bias of media. Small town America disagrees.
23 posted on 12/27/2016 8:20:38 AM PST by blues-train (blues train)
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To: usafa92

I thought The Albany Times Union would lose half of their subscribers when their editorial recently called for electors for Trump to vote for Hillary.


24 posted on 12/27/2016 8:21:42 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: plsjr

Bingo.


25 posted on 12/27/2016 8:22:58 AM PST by Mr. Lucky
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

What I find unbelievable is someone working for the NYT actually went to Oklahoma.


26 posted on 12/27/2016 8:23:05 AM PST by gr8eman (Keep Winning!)
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To: freedumb2003

” You mean a 4th Conservative Justice, right? Alito, Kennedy and Thomas are the only ones we have now. “

Roberts mostly sides with Conservatives except for Obamacare =P


27 posted on 12/27/2016 8:23:41 AM PST by KavMan
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To: plsjr

The endorsement is fact:

http://www.enidnews.com/opinion/editorial-hillary-clinton-is-our-choice-for-commander-in-chief/article_c41d1c20-8cbd-11e6-9a59-f36b82784d02.html

The negative reaction was easily predicted by anyone with a minuscule knowledge of Oklahoma political trends.

The only question is whether there was in fact a threatening conversation. Which I find plausible, given the justifiable contempt in Oklahoma for Mrs. Clinton and her part in the war on fossil fuels.


28 posted on 12/27/2016 8:26:08 AM PST by drop 50 and fire for effect ("Work relentlessly, accomplish much, remain in the background, and be more than you seem.)
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To: usafa92
The editorial board, in a gray-shaded column on Page A4 on Oct. 9, wrote that Donald J. Trump lacked “the skills, experience or temperament to hold office.”

But an embezzler with no legal accomplishments who sells her office does. Brilliant.

29 posted on 12/27/2016 8:26:19 AM PST by marron
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To: usafa92

I am surprised they only lost 162 subscribers.
Trump carried every county in OK, as did Romney.
They had to have been insane to endorse Hillary.


30 posted on 12/27/2016 8:27:04 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents)
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To: usafa92

Can we take back the blue and give the red back to the commies?


31 posted on 12/27/2016 8:27:09 AM PST by Leep (Stronger without her!)
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To: usafa92

“But they seem to miss the point that readers have a ‘right’ to cancel their subscriptions...”

Bingo!

It seems that when they take on the mantle of brilliant, intellectually superior, cosmically intelligent Progressive geniuses, they think that they automatically have the right to be immune from any response from those they offend with their obnoxiousness. (Totalitarian wanabes, one and all.)

IMHO


32 posted on 12/27/2016 8:28:33 AM PST by ripley
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To: KavMan

Kennedy was the deciding vote for “gay marriage”.


33 posted on 12/27/2016 8:29:52 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here Of Citizen Parents)
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To: usafa92

“One Sunday after church,”

If Mr. Mullin attended church and endorsed the most pro-religious persecution and most anti-religious liberty candidate ever nominated by a major political party I’d want to make sure that I never attended his “church.”


34 posted on 12/27/2016 8:30:20 AM PST by ReformationFan
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To: usafa92

Sounds like a lot of decent people live in Enid - good for them.


35 posted on 12/27/2016 8:32:27 AM PST by dainbramaged (Get out of my country now)
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To: usafa92

My guess is that in the long run, they will lose much more than 162 subscribers. That number was likely the number that called up and cancelled the next week. Many more people will simply not renew their subscription when it comes due the next time. As much as the leftist media would like to portray us as loud, crude and bullying, the silent majority is largely silent and polite. It’s what we do.

A few years from now, when the newspaper announces its closing, they will cite relentless competition from online news sources, ignoring their decision to lecture and insult their readership. Lying to the bitter end is what leftist journalists do.


36 posted on 12/27/2016 8:32:57 AM PST by CaptainMorgantown
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To: Gaffer
Mullin deserved his ass kicked. I hope his paper loses all its subscribers and advertisers.

Exactly. Only state in the union with all red counties in the election. Idiots trying to infiltrate ALERT!

HOORAY Oklahoma!!!!

America's finest.

37 posted on 12/27/2016 8:33:23 AM PST by PGalt (CONGRATULATIONS Donald J. Trump)
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To: Brooklyn Attitude

I did not renew the subscription to my own town’s turning left wing rag until it expired because there was no refund and the paper was somewhat useful on the floor during wall painting.


38 posted on 12/27/2016 8:33:43 AM PST by stagline
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To: nikos1121

I’ve been visiting some relatives in another state over the holidays, some of whom are more liberal than me. I’ve heard enough of the Trump as Hitler meme the past few days to last me a lifetime. This caricature of Trump as the greatest danger to world peace and our nations existence is laughable, yet some people take all this very seriously. These are the people who need therapy dogs to cope with an election.


39 posted on 12/27/2016 8:35:57 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: ripley
A New York Real Estate Magnate Schlonged Hillary Clinton. It Hasn't Been Forgiven
40 posted on 12/27/2016 8:36:36 AM PST by Fightin Whitey
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