NOTE: Initially this post linked to the front pages of the papers mentioned. The Newseum updates with new pages each day. For a look at some of the regional pages, see Charles Apple's blog.
I’m pretty fascinated by the Newseum today and how newspapers decided to play the news of Penn. State football coach Joe Paterno (and Graham Spanier, the university’s president) being fired over allegations of covering up the alleged sexual abuse of young boys, some on Penn. State’s campus, by former football coach Jerry Sandusky.
It seems like papers were all over the map about how big to play this story.
Pennsylvania papers all played it big, of course.
Some papers in or near Big Ten towns did too:
- Champaign-Urbana, Ill. (The News-Gazette)
- Evanston, Ill. (Chicago Sun-Times) — it was stripped across the top of the Tribune
- Iowa City, Iowa (The Des Moines Register)
- Ann Arbor, Mich. (The Detroit News and The Free Press) Minneapolis, Minn. (The Star Tribune and the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press)
- Lincoln, Neb. (the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World-Herald)
- Columbus, Ohio (the Columbus Dispatch)
- West Lafayette, Ind. (the Journal and Courier)
And some didn’t, though there was still a presence on the front:
- Madison, Wisc. (the Wisconsin State Journal)
- East Lansing, Mich. (Lansing State Journal)
- Bloomington, Ind. (The Herald-Times)
It’s one line stripped across the top of the Birmingham (Ala.) News, but is the centerpiece of the Opelika-Auburn (Ala.) News.
The Bakersfield Californian played it huge on the front with five mugs showing those fired and charged, but refered to page 58 for the story. It’s not on the front of the L.A. Times.
Other papers with pretty big treatments are the Washington D.C. Express, the St. Petersburg Times, The (Bloomington) Pantagraph, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, lots of New Jersey papers, including the (Newark) Star-Ledger, and even the New York Times.