The Post-Standard

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The June 13, 2006 front page of The Post-Standard
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Advance Publications Inc.
Publisher	Stephen A. Rogers
Editor	Stephen A. Rogers
Founded	1829
Headquarters	Clinton Square Syracuse, NY 13221-4915 United States

Website: post-standard.com

The Post-Standard is the major daily newspaper servicing the greater Syracuse, New York metro area. Affiliated with Syracuse.com, it is owned by Advance Publications Inc. The Post-Standard features regular political commentary from Sean Kirst and local commentary by Dick Case. Its circulation is approximately 168,000, and it is home-delivered in the four counties that make up the Syracuse metro area. Additionally, it is available in many retail outlets throughout the North Country and Southern Tier of New York.

1 History
2 Editorial viewpoint
3 Investigations
4 Wikipedia controversy
5 External links

[edit] History

The Post-Standard was founded in 1829 as the Onondaga Standard. It became the Daily Standard in the 1880s and merged with the Syracuse Post on New Year's Day in 1899. It was on this day that the name was changed to The Post-Standard.

During this time, the Syracuse Herald-Journal also co-existed. The Herald-Journal was the result of the merger of the Syracuse Journal and the Evening Herald in 1939. Soon afterward, William Randolph Hearst's paper, the Sunday American, became known as the Herald American. The Herald-Journal, Herald American, and The Post-Standard all were purchased in 1944 by Samuel I. Newhouse, later benefactor of Syracuse University's acclaimed S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

For the most part, the papers operated independently from each other, outside of ownership. The Post-Standard was published in the morning, the Herald-Journal in the afternoon, and the Herald American on Sundays (which technically served as both the Post and the Herald). These newspapers were known collectively as the Syracuse Newspapers and indeed the Post-Standard is often still referred to today by this term by some locals.

In 1993, the local feature desks were merged into one section, CNY, in reference to Central New York. In 2001, the Herald-Journal folded, leaving one paper, The Post-Standard.

Today, the papers are still owned by the Newhouse family, whose company is named Advance Publications. Along with the Syracuse paper, Advance also publishes Parade Magazine, the Staten Island Advance, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, the Oregonian in Portland, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The Post-Standard publishes three additional editions: Cayuga, Madison, and Oswego for the other three counties of the metropolitan area. It has seven news bureaus throughout Central New York, as well as one in Albany (state capital) and Washington, DC.

Before the merger with the evening paper, the Post-Standard was named as among the "10 best newspapers in America with a circulation of under 100,000" by Al Neuharth of USA Today (run by a competing organization). Since the merger, circulation has increased to over 120,000. Even outside of its four-county delivery area, the paper is available in many convenience stores and supermarkets from the Canadian to the Pennsylvanian border. The newspaper partly caters to this audience as well, covering many stories from the Ithaca, Utica, and Watertown areas. Since opening a new printing press in 2002, the paper calls itself "America's Most Colorful Newspaper," as almost every page contains color. The Post-Standard partners with Syracuse.com to provide its content online.

[edit] Editorial viewpoint

In former years, the Syracuse newspapers were known for their conservative, pro-business slant. However, during the 2000s, the Post-Standard has taken a significantly more liberal viewpoint on local, state and especially national issues, although its editorial style is best described as left of center.

[edit] Investigations

In 2004 and 2005, the Post-Standard published in-depth investigative pieces focusing especially on the inner workings of Albany, including Gov. George Pataki's office and the New York Legislature. Recent investigations have focused on the allocation of state-borrowed money by the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly; and also on the controversy over the secretive sale of public lands along the Erie Canal by the New York State Canal Corporation for less than the land's market value.

[edit] Wikipedia controversy

The newspaper features a technology column by Al Fasoldt called "Technofile", which is presumably a play on the word "Technophile".

On August 25, 2004, he published an article reviewing Wikipedia, referring to it as "untrustworthy, and should be avoided" and separately as "outrageous", "repugnant" and "dangerous".[1] This proved to be a hot button article for supporters and critics of the project, with a search of Google resulting in at least 315 blogs and other sites mentioning the commentary.

One of these was techdirt.com, which challenged Al Fasoldt to vandalize the article about the city in which his newspaper is located, Syracuse.[2] There is no evidence of Fasoldt taking up the challenge, but several other readers decided to put Wikipedia to the test.

On September 15, another journalist for the paper, Brian Cubbison followed-up on the controversy[3], stating that one tester, a professor at the University at Buffalo, Alex Halavais had reported that vandalism to Wikipedia articles is usually fixed within hours, a statement that he backed up with data from his testing, which he dubbed "The Isuzu Experiment."[4] Halavais had added a false fact in the history section of the Syracuse article, but this was removed by a Wikipedian about an hour and a half later. A more obvious false fact was placed elsewhere in the article, and this was removed within 45 minutes. Post-Standard reporter Cubbison ended his article by stating there were still three mistakes in the Syracuse article, one that had been there since June, but did not mention what these were.

The librarian originally quoted by Fasoldt gave the following follow-up statement:

I just re-read what I originally sent to Al Fasoldt in the recent Post-Standard column. I'm afraid I do have egg all over my face... The message was NOT... that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source. The message was that the best thing about the web (the sharing of information and ideas) can also make it harder for the average high school student to make a judgement call when checking the authority of a source used for research.

I'm sorry if this generated controversy over the authority of the site, this is NOT what was intended. It just illustrates the problem. (MediaWiki Quarto, Issue 1)