O'Reilly's Ridiculous Omission
Reported by Marie Therese - November 9, 2005
On last night's O'Reilly Factor, the Bloviating Billster used his "Most Ridiculous item of the Day" segment to gloat about the falling circulation figures of what he termed the "left-wing" newspapers. In typical O'Reilly fashion, he neglected to tell his viewers the whole story.
O'REILLY: "Time now for the most ridiculous item of the day. The nation's newspapers continue to lose readership. Many of them deserve it. New circulation numbers say the biggest drops are happening at left-wing newspapers. The L. A. Times down another 4%. Houston Chronice 6% down. Boston Globe down 8%. Atlanta- Journal-Constitution down almost 9% and the San Francisco Chronicle down an astounding 17%. Now, our pals at the TampaTribune and St. Petersburg Times - we'll deal with the St. Petersburg Times again tomorrow - are also down. What's happening here is that the internet is much easier to access than a newspaper but also millions of traditional-thinking Americans have stopped bying the left-wing papers. All and all, unless the left-wing press becomes more fair and balanced, things will get even more more ridiculous. Bank on it."
COMMENT
The newspaper the right-wing loves to hate - the New York Times - actually saw a slight INCREASE in circulation of 0.46%. O'Reilly never told his viewers that.
Nor did he tell them that Murdoch-owned tabloid, the New York Post, lost 1.74% in circulation.
Additionally, many newspapers have instituted online editions. The figures below do not include subscribers to online versions of the various papers.
Here's the list. Some of the percentages include weekend editions.
1. USA Today, 2,296,335, down 0.59 percent
2. The Wall Street Journal, 2,083,660, down 1.10 percent
3. The New York Times, 1,126,190, up 0.46 percent
4. Los Angeles Times, 843,432, down 3.79 percent
5. New York Daily News, 688,584, down 3.70 percent
6. The Washington Post, 678,779, down 4.09 percent
7. New York Post, 662,681, down 1.74 percent
8. Chicago Tribune, 586,122, down 2.47 percent
9. Houston Chronicle, 521,419, down 6.01 percent (a)
10. The Boston Globe, 414,225, down 8.25 percent
11. The Arizona Republic, 411,043, down 0.54 percent (a)
12. The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., 400,092, up 0.01 percent
13. San Francisco Chronicle, 391,681, down 16.4 percent (a)
14. Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, 374,528, down 0.26 percent
15. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 362,426, down 8.73 percent
16. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 357,679, down 3.16 percent
17. Detroit Free Press, 341,248, down 2.18 percent
18. The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 339,055, down 4.46 percent
19. The Oregonian, Portland, 333,515, down 1.24 percent
20. The San Diego Union-Tribune, 314,279, down 6.24 percent.
* Four major newspapers deferred filing for the period pending completion of their next six-month audit. Those papers had been excluded from the previous two reporting periods as a penalty for misstating circulation figures in the past: Newsday of New York's Long Island; the Dallas Morning News; the Chicago Sun-Times and Hoy, a Spanish-language newspaper in New York. The first three papers had previously been in the top 20.
(a) Includes Saturday circulation.
Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations.
