The death of antiquated newspaper political endorsements
Update: One of the most prominent pundits discussing the mix of professional journalism with citizen journalism (Jeff Jarvis) writes a column for The Guardian in the U.K. I’ve excerpted a portion of his column below. Note: Editorial writers are referred to as “leader writers” or “leaders” in the Queen’s tongue so though Jeff is an American, he uses the Brit’s descriptor.
My belief is that political endorsements are an artifact of the buggywhip days that are destined for extinction or at least must evolve from the newspapers’ current paternalistic, opaque and antiquated approach.
I believe news organizations regardless of medium (TV, newspaper, Internet) should stick to the news and provide as much information as they can to inform the electorate. They can serve a valuable function if they do their job well by shedding light on where candidates stand on a variety of issues as well as investigating their track record. For some reason, unlike other media, newspapers have felt they had to have an “editorial agenda” including one that tells people how to vote. Simply on the basis of being an independent thinker, it has always rubbed me the wrong way when they attempted to tell me how I should vote. However, after becoming media savvy through working in the media business (getting inside the sausage factory, if you will), I became more disturbed at how newspaper management typically operate. I want to make the distinction clear between newspaper management and the journalists working at newspapers. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many newspaper journalists who are very diligent and are of high integrity. Unfortunately, they often work in flawed organizations where their management is pushing their personal agenda in an opaque manner.
The fundamental issue I have is a lack of transparency. Most news-gathering organizations demand transparency in the subjects they report upon, however they aren’t transparent themselves. Frankly, I’d prefer how Fox News operates where there’s no mystery they have an agenda Karl Rove agrees with. It’s easy to view their reporting and know what filter they are pouring their news through. In contrast, papers put on a charade of objectivity when in fact they are far from objective. It would be OK if a paper was transparent with their owner’s agenda and thus practiced what they preached when it came to transparency but that’s not the case today. I’ve suggested a better approach below.
These are the key questions I think any media organization should answer if they are going to put out editorial endorsements (some of these ideas are borrowed from noted pundits Jeff Jarvis and Dan Gillmor who are 20-30 year veteran magazine and newspaper journalists who are now leading thinkers in the “citizen journalism” world):1. What exactly is their stated “editorial agenda”? I’m certain they have one but I don’t see it published in each edition of their paper.
2. Who is on their editorial board that makes endorsement decisions?
3. What business are those people in?
4. What political affiliations do they have (or not)?
5. Have they made political campaign donations?
6. How have they voted in the past?
7. What political donations have been made by the corporation?
8. If more than one person is making endorsement decisions, what were the individual votes if there wasn’t unanimity.
Add your thoughts below if I’ve missed any important questions.
If they aren’t willing to answer those reasonable and simple questions, it’s clear they have something to hide or else they would readily offer up answers. On the other hand, they may be private which I have no problem with…they just shouldn’t do political endorsements. What you may find ironic is that I am pretty sure I have agreed with more endorsements I’ve read in various newspapapers than I’ve disagreed with. For me, it’s not a matter of disagreeing with their view. Rather, I may agree with the “End” but the “Means” are intentionally deceptive taking us for fools. If they continue with the status quo, you can assume they think their readers are fools, sheep or worse. I would hope a media organization would think more of its audience. What do you think?
In Part 2, I will answer the question, “what about SunValleyOnline?” That is, how does it think about this issue? In addition, I outline why newspapers haven’t updated a practice that goes back to the buggywhip days when it may have made sense. In the meantime, if you have questions you want to ask candidates via Gary Stivers, you can suggest questions here.
Here’s a section of Jeff Jarvis’ column:
The irony of leader writers is that they commit the sins usually attributed to bloggers: they rarely report and mostly just opine and pontificate - that is, they leech off the work of other journalists. And they work anonymously. Leaders speak as the voices of institutions, issuing opinions from the mountaintop, hidden by the cloak of distance. Yet today, in our connected society, we do not trust institutions. We demand transparency. We expect conversation.
When I wrote this on my weblog, I heard the pained squeals of American leader writers. Frank Partsch, retired editorial-page editor of the Omaha World-Herald, published an op-ed in another newspaper defending the form: “An editorial, in its purest sense, is an institutional opinion, representing the views of the owner or investors - people willing each day to stand behind the leadership of the editorial page even at the risk of attracting the ire of the community and putting their investment at risk,” Partsch said, adding: “A blog entry is no more an editorial than is graffiti.”
This is particularly paradoxical in America, where journalists insist that they are objective and that they and their institutions have no point of view. And besides, newspaper owners in America are rarely members of the community anymore; they are usually shareholders in distant media conglomerates.
Full article without registration is here.
In the case of our local newspapers, they have owners in Iowa, Indiana and Canada based upon what I’ve read in their masthead and histories so they don’t have the kind of accountability one would hope for.
Later: I posted a follow-up on SunValleyOnline’s Political Endorsement Point of View
September 19th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Dave are you kidding me? Do you really think small town newspapers are going to publish their agendas and personal opinions? And tell the truth?
Let me tell you how it really works. Owners and editors of newspapers live here. Their success depends on building relationships, selling advertising, and trust. They have to live with the consequences of what they write. They have to come off as objective even though they really aren’t. They can’t afford to bite the hand that feeds them. They kind of mirror the sentiment of their citizenry as they see it and still try to write something people will want to read.
The Mt. Express is a product of small town living. They aren’t going to write derogatory pieces about popular public leaders, or how local businesses gouge us,
or whether or not we should build a hospital where it makes the most sense. They have to support these businesses and projects. The people that own those businesses and support community projects are their friends, sometimes lifelong friends. Do you think they are going to abandon lifelong friendships, and expose flawed opinions, or jeopardize their credibility in the process?
I’m ok with all that. The reality is, is that tomorrow morning, your going to grab your copy of the newspapers and read them. Or read them online. They are not going to tell you their agendas, and I’m not sure they should have to. Opinions, irrespective of how they are obtained, have been a way of life in newspapers forever and will always remain so. It’s that free speech thing again.
But I will tell you this. I agree with you, Dave. It just ain’t gonna happen, anytime soon.
NT
September 19th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
[...] « Why I think antiquated newspaper political endorsements should die… [...]
September 20th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Truth,
I agree that the change probably won’t happen and I doubt Mr. Chase thought that either. I’ve been reading his blog and what I think he does a good job of is getting people to question the status quo. Just because newspapers have done something for 100s of years doesn’t make it right.
I understand your thought process in terms of why newspapers might not want to criticize popular public leaders but shouldn’t we expect more of them? Dinosaurs didn’t evolve either and look where they are. I’m glad there’s a forum like this where people can call a spade a spade (your comments in the past have been a great example of that) and that Sun Valley Online allows that even though they are also a business supported by advertising. Tracy Lotz seems to be pretty fearless in that regard.
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:33 pm
[...] As some have read before, we don’t believe in doing candidate endorsements. Read “Our View” and for commentary on that as well as what we see as the flaws (and solutions) for newspaper endorsements in The death of antiquated newspaper political endorsements Part 1 and Part 2. We think highly of the voters in the Wood River Valley and believe that if we provide a forum for various viewpoints and information, you are more than capable of making your own decision regarding how to vote (i.e., we don’t need to tell you). One of the most gratifying comments we receive on nearly a daily basis is that we’ve enabled a level of discussion that has been absent and allows people to become more informed about what’s going on in the valley. We just provide a venue. It’s you, the SunValleyOnline community, that brings it to life. We appreciate any and all input on how we can facilitate a valuable “conversation” amongst valley voters. [...]
October 30th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
For many decades, I’ve been thinking along the same lines myself. I’ve been in the Newspaper business on and off since 1953 when I was a San Francisco paper boy delivering the Call Bulletin in the afternoon and the S.F. Chronicle in the morning. San Francisco had at least 4 dailies at the time. I don’t mind telling anyone who asks why I vote the way I do and encourage them to do likewise if they they want to become among the right thinking brilliant policy wonks like myself however I have a tendency to gag when I read newspaper editorial political endorsements whether they agree with me or not. Its obvious to me at least that the people who pen these endorsements are on a big ego trip and are using their positions and their writing ability to set themselves above the average policy wonk. I would much rather see a short pro and con discussion of each candidate or issue in the same size type as letters to the editor.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’ve noticed that there is an abundance of nut cases blogging in the online world but that enables each reader to become his own editor and ignore the nuts and agree with the reasonable.