Newspapers: In His Own Backyard

The Dover, Del., State News possesses many distinctions. It may well be the only U.S. daily whose reporters cannot come in out of the rain. The roof leaks. Its editor accepts payola—and brags about it. Accept the gift and ignore the giver, he says. He also quarrels with his wife on the editorial page and takes pride in not knowing what his writers are going to say next. Simply by being there, the paper has canceled one of the city's own claims to distinction: until the State News came along, Dover was the...