Bisbee Draws Disparate Newspaper Coverage

The two largest newspapers in this state are the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the Morning News chain of Northwest Arkansas. The two are in a pitched battle for subscribers in the area where they overlap.

Their coverage of former state senator and current Benton County Judge David Bisbee could not be more different. The editorial page of the Democrat Gazette recently ran an editorial about Bisbee that could fairly be described as "fawning". This was in stark contrast to his hometown papers. The Morning News has been running a series of increasingly frustrated reports on Bisbee's activities, culminating in a brutal editorial in today's Morning News (Rogers and Bentonville editions).

Newspapers have great power to shape people's perception of reality (which is a very different thing from reality itself). Depending on which paper is read, the perception of County Judge David Bisbee will vary greatly.