Political endorsements

I find myself agreeing with Jeff Bezos that political endorsements by newspapers are an outdated and problematic practice in the context of increasing trust in the news media.

My newspaper does not publish endorsements in political races.

If we did, I think we would instantly experience a drop in the trust our subscribers and readers have in us and our reporting.

Even if the endorsements were clearly labeled as opinion and even if we magically had enough people to create a “firewall” between our news reporting team and our editorial team, and even if they agreed with our endorsement, the thousands of people who pick up our county newspaper every week would view it as crossing a line, and it would limit their ability to read our future reporting as unmotivated by any particular political point of view.

In the case of the Washington Post, their timing to make this policy change is terrible. It should have been made before the primary election or much earlier.

But I also wonder just how many people outside the paper would have noticed the absence of an endorsement, if there had not been such a strong reaction internally. Were people really depending on that moment to make a difference in the election? Or is this a bit of a manufactured crisis?

In the case of an electoral race where there is a striking contrast between two candidates in their values, policies and mannerisms, I think if a newspaper is doing journalism well, anyone reading its political coverage will likely draw the same strong conclusion as an explicit endorsement would offer.

I strongly support the idea that the pages of a newspaper can and should be a venue for robust public dialog and debate. I wish people used letters to the editor and columns more often to start conversations and share nuanced views on politics and culture, instead of just slapping a one-liner up on social media and letting it scroll on by. In the case of a small newspaper like my own, I could even understand how it might be reasonable for a publisher/owner/reporter to write editorial columns that muddy the waters a bit.

But I don’t think it’s the place of the newspaper of any size that is trying to keep a diverse electorate informed and engaged to then put its official organizational signature on editorial conclusions about the subjects it also reports on.