In today’s media world – increasingly crowded with online sources of news, analysis, commentary, and opinionated bloggers – newspaper endorsements may not mean as much as they did when “the press” almost exclusively involved actual ink on paper.

But they’re watched closely nonetheless, and around the country newspapers are starting to weigh in on the major presidential candidates in Election 2012.

According to a tally of the top 100 newspapers by circulation by the American Presidency Project, Mitt Romney has collected five endorsements so far, and Obama has six. (The American Presidency Project is a nonpartisan online database of presidential messages, papers, documents, and other information.)