Vox Populi

Newspapers are the voice of the people, even now, in the age of the Internet. There are left-leaning ones, right-leaning ones, moderate ones, and some that seem to just wander about the center. But in Pennsylvania, right or left, they all seem to be in favor of liquor privatization.

The State Store clerks and their union bosses will tell you that it is because of the advertising dollars that newspapers will get from liquor ads; it's all about the money. But if you look at the Sunday New York Times, in the largest media market in the country, how much liquor advertising do you actually see? Usually under a quarter of a page. How much do they think The Somerset Daily American is going to get in advertising column inches? Makes for good sound bites, though, and helps you forget that for the clerks and the union bosses...it's all about the money.

I wonder how the "liberal media" is somehow controlled by the right on just this one subject, don't you? They know and have known that the people overall want a private liquor system. There has never been a scientific poll showing otherwise, including all the polls the newspapers have done themselves. The first complaints published about the PLCB were shortly after it started, saying there was a lack of selection and convenience. 82 years later, nothing has changed.

So here's the challenge. What newspaper is actually in favor of keeping the state stores? Are there any, besides the Raging Chicken Press?  (I'm not making that up and it isn't a print newspaper either.) Perhaps a few union and progressive blogs, but even some of them are in favor.

Here are just some of the newspapers that have come out editorially, some numerous times, for privatization. Where is the list of newspapers against?

Bucks County Courier Times-Intelligencer
Butler Eagle
Express Times (Bethlehem)
Lebanon Daily News
Philadelphia Inquirer
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Scranton Times Tribune
Somerset Daily American
The Altoona Mirror
The Citizens Voice (Wilkes-Barre)
The Courier Express  (DuBois)
The Delaware Daily Times
The Observer Reporter (Washington/Greene Counties)
The Patriot News (Harrisburg)
The Pocono Record
The Pottstown Mercury
The Reading Eagle
The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre)
The Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown)
Williamsport Sun-Gazette
York Daily Record

All parts of the state, all sizes of towns and cities, all in favor of what the people want. 3,000 clerks should not control the wants of a state of 12.7 million.

Privatize. Make this the year it happens.