Couric Trumpets Chicago Tribune's Obama Endorsement

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“The Chicago Tribune did something today it had never done before -- it had not endorsed a Democrat for President, not even Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson in his two runs,” CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric touted Friday night before heralding the endorsement of the candidate from the paper's circulation area: “But today, the Trib endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama. It said he's better suited than John McCain to restore a quote, 'common sense of national purpose.'”

The endorsement editorial posted Friday afternoon, but presumably to appear in Sunday's newspaper, acknowledged the paper's admiration for the hometown Senator is nothing new: “On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.”

Neither Friday's NBC's Nightly News nor ABC's World News considered the endorsement newsworthy.

The editorial, “Tribune endorsement: Barack Obama for president,” oozed in its conclusion:

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation's most powerful office, he will prove it wasn't so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama's name to Lincoln's in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

Obama is up 3-to-1 in newspaper endorsements (by 4-to-1 in circulation), according to the latest Editor & Publisher count as of today (Friday):

The Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race for newspaper endorsements, picking up 12 more papers in the past day, including the giant Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune on Friday afternoon. This brings his lead over McCain-Palin by this measure to over 3-1 so far, at 51-16....

The readership of the 51 newspapers backing Obama now stands at 6,299,363 daily circulation. He gained two biggies yesterday in The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle....

The Mountain Valley News in Colorado adds to McCain’s endorsement list, bringing his total to 16 newspapers. The daily circulation of his newspapers now stands at 1,502,163.

Couric's short item, in full, on the Friday, October 17 CBS Evening News which she anchored from Charlotte:

One other Campaign '08 note, the Chicago Tribune did something today it had never done before -- it had not endorsed a Democrat for President, not even Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson in his two runs. But today, the Trib endorsed Illinois Senator Barack Obama. It said he's better suited than John McCain to restore a quote, “common sense of national purpose."