Scott recently suggested that the Minneapolis Star Tribune may be America's worst newspaper. That produced lots of emails from readers who nominated their own newspapers, or others with which they are familiar, for the honor. This gave us the idea for a new poll: What is the worst newspaper in the United States?

Here are the nominees, with commentary by those who nominated them:

The Minneapolis Star Tribune: Nominated by Scott, citing Mark Steyn: “Unreadable sludge.”

The Houston Chronicle: A reader who worked for the Chronicle for “quite a while”: “Its main problem is not even its liberalism, which it suffers from, but its vapidity. On top of that, the editor from Hearst Corp. is trying to teach Houstonians how to be proper liberals. The fact that no one ever hears about the newspaper at America’s fourth largest city should tell you a lot.”

The Olympian (Olympia, Washington): MHJ: “From their editorial about how good it is that the Governor is going to direct the employees of the State Department of Transportation to cooperate with the State Auditor on taxpayer-directed performance audits, to their choice of letters to the editor, the Olympian begs for an editorial staff with common sense and analytical skills.”

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Thomas Nast (among many other readers of Stefan Sharkansky): “Consistently, and I do mean consistently, substitutes liberal dogma for 'facts' (which it then prints on the front page as 'news') and conjures the most knee-jerk editorials I've ever seen.”

The Los Angeles Times: Max Wyeth: “All around worst paper, general purposes.” See generally Patterico.

The Boston Globe: Scott Wilhelm:

I could point out their vapid, predictable, and one sided editorials, or the news stories that are really vapid, predictable, and one sided editorials as evidence. Instead, however, I suggest you follow this link, detailing a recent Boston Globe "scoop.” Essentially the Globe got pictures from a pornographic website by way of the Nation of Islam and claimed that these pictures were evidence of American servicemen raping Iraqi women. While there are certainly many deserved candidates for the title of worst newspaper in America, I think you will not find a lower, more pathetic attempt by members of the MSM to smear our troops and our country anywhere else.”

Richard Allison: See Squaring the Boston Globe.

The Palm Beach Post: Ronald Griffis: “Since the early 80's, many locals have referred to it as the 'Palm Beach Pravda' for the nearly comical level of progressive propaganda in its pages. For good examples of this, you can visit the op-ed pages online (particularly the local columnists) or check out their latest multimedia Special Report.”

The St. Petersburg Times: Rob Riordan: “Have you even seen the Pravda of the south? This is the paper that took Howell Raines after the New York Times dumped him. But the topping on the cake was when TWO of its reporters were caught on tape by the FBI coaching convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian." See Daniel Pipes's report here.

The Chicago Tribune: Rich Ryan: “It’s not even worth using for lining my bird cage.”

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald: Jim Verdolini:

I nominate the Portland Press Herald (Portland Maine). The paper has the habit of picking candidates they like (liberal Democrats) and then suppressing all news and opinion that hammers their guy.

A classic example:

In 2000 they editorialized that the perpetual Gore recount SHOULD be settled in the courts as the Florida legislature, dominated by Republicans, was too partisan to produce a valid result. In 2002 Maine had a very close state senate election. The existing Democrat senate seated the Democrat candidate while the recount effort moved to the courts. The PPH editorialized that the courts were, of course, NOT the proper place to settle the issue as they were not beholden to the people. To make it more entertaining, when the state senate acted to vote on seating the Democrat permanently, they let the guy vote for his own seating, casting the deciding vote. The paper saw absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

I wrote an opinion piece to the paper quoting both their editorial positions. They refused to print it.

The Oregonian (Portland): Laurence Oeth: “Farther left than the Guardian, but without the snappy prose. Never saw a tax or union it wasn’t in love with. Read it and weep. You really need to see the print version for the full effect. The headlines are much more inflammatory than the relatively tame online version.”

Kansas City Star: Max Wyeth: “Relentless liberalism, then spiteful revenge pieces.”

San Francisco Chronicle: Not nominated by any readers, but a paper that few will dispute belongs on this list. See this recent example, and this.

Santa Fe New Mexican: Major General (ret.) Frank Schober:

Constantly regurgitates the current Democrat talking points in both its news articles and its editorials. Examples:

*Gives us a daily Iraq "body count" even on days when none of our soldiers have been killed....just to keep up its anti-war drumbeat. Also reports, for example that "25 Iraqis killed in raid" but does not report that 22 of those killed were terrorists attacking a government installation.

*Not particularly adept at proof reading. Thinks that "Spell Check" will save the day. They have published such gems as "Alter Boys accuse priest of..." and "Recipient of Nobel Piece Prize states..."

*Misleads by using headlines that do not reflect reality, like DOW-JONES TOPS 12,000, BUT SOME "ANALYSTS" SAY IT CAN'T LAST.

Washington Post: Max Wyeth: “Slavish liberalism (probably all those gummint workers)."

You will notice that the New York Times is not included in the competition. We wanted to keep a level playing field so that the other papers could have a chance.

Have at it! You can vote for America's Worst Newspaper on Power Line News.

PAUL suggests: Once we get a winner, let's have it face the New York Times. Our readers should have the opportunity at some point to vote for the Times.

UPDATE: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has jumped out to an early lead. We must have a lot of readers in Seattle!