Here’s why a newspaper’s endorsement still matters

By John McClelland

Friday, Oct. 14, 2016 | 2 a.m.

This national election is raising anew some enduring questions of whether editorial endorsements matter or even should be done. They do, and they should.

Huge numbers of people are committed one way or the other and will not be swayed by mere mass media. Many young adults do not read legacy media on paper or phones.

But how about helping the undecided? Or the level of motivation to vote? Well-reasoned commentary can have an effect. How about “telling the truth as we see it” and letting the chips fall?

In some state and local elections, endorsement can be decisive as an antidote to ignorance or as fodder for TV ads. How many citizens have firsthand exposure to judicial candidates, for example? Journalists do, and many editorial boards invest hundreds of hours in learning about candidates and interviewing them in person.

Scores of opinion editors I know take seriously their roles as advisers to the public. Some invest yet more time in helping their counterparts elsewhere.

Yes, they are largely white and collegiate, and mostly male and aging. Their pages present a wide spectrum of views, but still critics say they are not sufficiently in touch with minorities, the disaffected and others. Some remain habitually liberal or conservative on nearly everything.

Editorial boards have no influence on news operations, but they examine the facts that reporters dig up. They strive to be open-minded.

Some have debated whether endorsing (or “recommending”) is worth the huge effort. One group’s near-consensus: We have access to information and candidates that most voters do not, especially locally; we must use it. One group even discussed when to retract a position, and when to hold our noses and back the lesser doofus.

Most opinion editors put public well-being above, or at least on a par with, self-interest. Yes, they are part of an establishment fading because digital media have usurped the revenue. Yes, some are prone to status-quo-ism. Some back liberals and others oppose big government. But they all care.

My early 1960s mentor Bob Sink’s advice: We cannot tell the people how to vote, only advise. We can provoke them to think. We can affect a close race (“for dog-catcher,” he said in jest).

At polling places, people in line had cut out our summary and marked it up. Were they voting for, or against, our recommendations? Both.

Fast forward to September 2016: Academic economist Agustin Casas found that “surprise endorsements,” unlike the predictable ones, can have an effect beyond the common reinforcement of existing views.

This has already been a year for unexpected recommendations.

Of 37 daily newspaper presidential endorsement editorials tallied by Tuesday night, 23 did not stay with the partisan position (or non-position, in five cases) that they took in 2012. Six published “no-endorsement” editorials. Six went for Libertarian Gary Johnson. And USA Today ended a 34-year tradition of not recommending.

Endorsements often differ from voting. Newspapers hugely opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he won big. But opinion editors are not bookies picking winners; they have something to say beyond “vote thus.”

The Chicago Tribune came out for Libertarian Gary Johnson to rebuke both major parties: “How did pandering to aggrieved niche groups and seducing blocs of angry voters replace working toward solutions …?”

Among those that switched were The Arizona Republic: “1890 ... Never ... This year is different.” The Detroit News: “never done in its 143-year history.” Cincinnati Enquirer: first “in generations.”

The Dallas Morning News backed its first Democratic presidential candidate since the Depression. Editor Mike Wilson faced protesters and subscription cancellations. He said, and was widely quoted, praised and vilified online for it, “We write our editorials based on principle, and sometimes principle comes at a cost.”

The Chicago Sun-Times stopped endorsing before 2012 but resumed in 2014 when it saw a severe crisis in state government.

The Houston Chronicle switched, according to Conor Friedersdorf in Atlantic. He also wrote of public figures who switch: “I’d never tell anyone to defer to their arguments, but do hear them out.”

That’s good advice for readers of endorsement editorials, wherever you stand on the major candidates, or the gerrymandered state legislative districts, or your town’s dog-catcher.

Hear them out.

More information

Among sites that track presidential endorsements are tinyurl.com/endorsements-wiki.

Among sites that track academics are tinyurl.com/endorsements-ucsb.

John McClelland, speaking here just for himself, edits The Masthead, journal of the Association of Opinion Journalists, which is merging into the American Society of News Editors. A former reporter-photographer and editor in the Midwest and Mid-South, he is retired from teaching journalism at Roosev