Garrison State

Fun pun, eh? I don't report here at KN@PPSTER on the state of The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism nearly as often as I should, but it's definitely horn-blowing time.

October was the best month in the Center's history on two fronts:

• More reprints of Garrison op-eds in mainstream newspapers and non-libertarian political publications. The previous record was in June, with 77. For October: 92.
• Prior to October, the largest newspaper (by circulation) to pick up a Garrison column was the Dallas, Texas Morning News. In October, a Garrison column ("'Rigged Election' Rhetoric: A Dangerous Two-Way Street") was picked up by USA Today, as well as by 24 of its affiliated local newspapers.

Every list I find of US newspapers ranked by circulation differs, and I haven't found one newer than 2013. But:

Back when the Dallas Morning News picked up a Garrison column, as best I could tell it was the 11th largest newspaper in the US by circulation.

USA Today may be THE largest. That's what some sources say, so that's what I'm gonna go with. Others have it mixed in with the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in various ways as the top three, though.

As far as I can tell, at least five of the USA Today affiliates that grabbed this column were  in the top 100 US newspapers by circulation, and one of them (the Arizona Republic) is possibly in the top 10 and certainly in the top 20.

So far I have identified more than 681 Garrison reprints this year against a goal of 750. I say "more than" because I count pickups for the previous month at the beginning of the following, and I almost always come across some later that didn't make the original count. At the end of the year I'll be going back through for a true count, and that true count will be higher than the aggregated initial counts.

Of course, if Garrison averaged 92 pickups a month, that would come to more than 1,100 per year. I'm working on it, folks.

The Garrison Center is one of the projects that keeps me standing on the streetcorner in fishnet stockings asking passersby if they wanna party. Or, rather, it's one of the projects you can support by supporting me, which you can do from over in the sidebar.