Sapulpa newspaper ignores Obama's election

Obama wins! Obama wins! But you might not know it if you lived in Sapulpa.

The town's newspaper, The Sapulpa Herald, failed to mention the news of Barack Obama's historic Nov. 4 election in the following day's edition. And that has many of the city's black residents as angry as Joe the Plumber facing a particularly clogged toilet.

According to an article in the Herald, "members of the Afro-American community have been very vocal" about the lack of coverage, flooding the office with phone calls and on-site protests.

The newspaper's stance? The news of Obama's win isn't local.

The protestors' response?

"I just think for the owner to say that is not local news "¦ I think that it is very important local news and should be in the local papers," Sapulpa resident Scott Gordon was quoted as saying.

So what was in the Nov. 5 issue? The headline declared the election victory of Sheriff Steve Toliver, followed up with articles about the elections of Rep. Mark McCullough, Sen. James Inhofe and U.S. Rep Frank Lucas.

Commentors on the Herald's Web site wrote, "Thanks for making Oklahoma look like a bigoted, hick-infested state," "You Neanderthals need to pull your heads out" and "Afro-American? Do we still use that term?"

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