What is your favorite AZ newspaper?

[MJLO]

Honestly for me the East Valley Tribune. When I first moved here, I thought the EVT was a hokey local type paper. The news I read in it though is very interesting. I think the Republic is considered the difinitive news source. But their headlines NEVER grab my attention, and I can rarely find interesting things in it that I can talk about on here. What is your favorite newspaper out here? Do you guys have any suggestions. Right now even If I move to Glendale, I'm still stickin with the EVT.

Colin, what is Tucsons main Newspaper?

[colin]

Isn't the EVT just a local version of the Republic?

Tucson has two dailies: Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Citizen. The Citizen is less successful and is regarded as the more conservative paper. I always read the Star, which is probably obvious from the links to articles that I post.

The "alternative" paper in town in the Tucson Weekly, which has more interesting articles, but is very similar to the "alternative" papers you'll find in other cities (i.e. - Phoenix New Times) as they're all owned by the same company.

[MJLO]

lol well the EVT may be a subsidy of the Republic, but they feature alot of the same stories. The EVT is generally more development oriented. The Republic, for some reason, never carries my interest. Alot of the time i'll impulsively purchase a paper, based on what I see on the front page. Republic almost always boring. But if the two are the same, then is there alternative print media in the valley?

[convulso]

i like the AZ daily star, but my exposure is limited. it's filled with plenty of piffle, but what mainstream paper of its size isn't? when there's actual news to report, it's got a good front. the opinion pages disappoint me, though. especially the reader contributions. hyper-conservatives are motivated letter-writers in every town, it seems. the editorial cartoonist is smug and obvious...then again, it IS a cartoon.

news here seems to be pretty sensation-hungry in general, with the TV stations milking the same lame three stories for three or four days in a row (a fire truck flipping? yep, that's three days' worth of 10 p.m. lead-ins...same with the 'it-could-happen-to-you' junk on car wash auto theft or the highly scientific experiements with household water-saving strategies. i guess i'm just sensitive to all the TV crap, since this is my first week here with an antenna.)

the tucson weekly has its problems...the editorial voice is pretty smarmy without having the depth that would justify the guy's tone. he's pretty much an ass because alternative weeklys are supposed to be brash, i guess. digging on everything and everybody is always cool - but it helps to up the ante by having something substantial (or at least witty) to say in retort. i'm an ex-news writer/ reporter, so i bristle at editorial 'tude pretty easily...

[colin]

Well said!

Sensationalism?? No, not in Tucson!!

I still believe that the larger cities are actually worse. One station in Houston (KPRC) was notorious for strip club and prostitution exposes. So they'd run this ridiculous story about how there are actually strip clubs in the city, and then go back onto a shooting or bank robbery story right after.

But I totally agree that the Star is actually a pretty damn good paper, especially considering how large Tucson is. If you think the letters are bad though, check out the comments that are left on their site. Most of it is just repeats of talk radio rhetoric, but the anti-immigration stuff is a bit upsetting, especially when people begin to portray immigrants as less than human. The paper is often referred to as "the Red Star" by these people, not in the "red state" sense, but rather in a more Marxist way, which I don't really get at all.

Relative to the rest of the state, there are very few Hispanics in the area around Payson (about 5%), and that may have to do with the racism. Payson's pretty backwoods. I've also found that people who live in Arizona but further north of the border, out of the way from the realities of it, seem to be much more out of touch with it and more eager to listen to what others are saying about it rather than actually think about it for themselves.

I had an argument with a somewhat conservative guy once about whether or not the Weekly was mostly negative, but this guy was just upset at their typical portrayal of Bush (to which I respond: "I think O'Reiley is on right now, you should go check").

I don't know that the local indie liberal weekly is necessarily supposed to be negative. But I must admit that I only really enjoy the movie reviews from DiGiovanna when they're particularly scathing (e.g. - "Stealth", "Elizabethtown"). Maybe it's just the cynnical nature of the age group they're aimed at that keeps it as such.

Per Opinion, Danehy particularly irks me because rarely does he really back up anything with sound logic. But I've always imagined that's the goal of the Opinion section: that's where you stick the anti guy to point to in the face of critics.

[MJLO]

Does the Republic slant left or right? I don't pay enough attention. As AZ cities go, Phoenix seems to lean more centrist to conservative, while the Tucson area seems to be more Liberal. Is this true?

[shrek05]

Heh never really noticed but the AZ Republic is owned by the same corporation that publishes USA Today so I think it would be rather moderate with a liberal slant. I read AZ Republic for my local news, mainly NY Times for national. I didnt realize there were papers other than AZ Republic in circulation in phoenix.

[convulso]

As AZ cities go, Phoenix seems to lean more centrist to conservative, while the Tucson area seems to be more Liberal. Is this true?

the perception is that phoenix is conservative and tucson, by contrast, liberal. maricopa county evidently dominates state politics and contributes significantly to conservatives' position of relative strength politically. i really haven't yet been able to tell whether tucson has a truly liberal slant to its residents' social views, or whether it just seems more so because phoenix, by contrast, is more conservative. i am pretty certain, though, that tucson is no san francisco when it comes to liberal politics...maybe more like austin.

colin?

[colin]

Austin may be a good comparison, although I would say Austin is more strongly liberal than here. I almost moved to Austin once and my sister lives there now.

Tucson is certainly the largest liberal city in AZ, but I still think that Flagstaff is more liberal. The City itself is very liberal, but we still have our cowboys in the outer, unincorporated suburbs, buying big trucks, big guns and shopping at the big boxes.

I don't know that there's any city you can compare Tucson to. Maybe Albuquerque. People use Portland a lot, but that's just not valid.

[colin]

Poking around on Wikipedia, I found out that Ann Coulter used to have columns printed in the Daily Star but the paper dropped her after complaints (from self-described conservatives), specifically citing "Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited".

Strange. BTW, another more recent Ann Coulter - Tucson connection: about a year ago, she spoke at UA and had a pie thrown at her, although she was not directly hit and only got some of the splatter. I actually didn't know who she was until I read about that incident.

[shrek05]

Heh, I read one of Ann Coulter's books once...she has some pretty messed up thoughts.

Her incident at UA wasnt unique. Every college she visits, she gets harrassed, so bad at UCONN i believ ethat she stepped off stage and said something like "i hate speaking to people less intelligent than me" and left in the middle of her speech.

[convulso]

those pies are her meal ticket...martyr. she's not a conservative, she's an entertainer who taps into the worst in human nature to get her material. better that no one show up than that she generate the pie-throwing level of interest...

[shrek05]

entertainer...hah, her job is more like to piss people off. though reading her comments/thoughts are rather interesting...most of them are majorly flawed and backwards.

[MJLO]

Update, the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Republic are owned by different companies, they are in essence competing papers.

The EVT was created a few years back and is owned by a CA print media company. The Republic as stated before is owned by Gannet, The parent company of USA Today.