Opinion Writing

Opinion journalism content begins arriving on asne.org

As the Association of Opinion Journalists is merging into ASNE, the two organizations cooperated in parts of the 2016 ASNE-APME News Leadership Conference Sept. 11-14 in Philadelphia. 

Richard Prince, of the Association of Opinion Journalists, presented the Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship for service to journalism education of minorities to David Armstrong of Georgia State University at the conference. 



Andrew Rosenthal, recently retired as the opinion editor of The New York Times, and Andrew Julien, recently promoted from editor to publisher-editor of the Hartford Courant, discussed the rise of editorial journalism in the digital-video age at the conference.


 

Why endorsements matter more now

By John McClelland

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

It is a year of change. Of the first 37 daily newspapers whose presidential endorsements were tallied on one website, 23 had changed from the partisan position they took in 2012.

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 first-hand 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, collegiate, 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 (Oct. 4), 23 did not stay with the partisan position (or non-position in 5 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.

Among sites that track presidential endorsements are:
tinyurl.com/endorsements-wiki
and academics at the University of California:
http://tinyurl.com/endorsements-ucsb
and Editor & Publisher is gathering stats.

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.” 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 (who spoke about doing a turnaround to digital at AOJ Symposium 2015) 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.

John McClelland, writing here just for himself, edits Masthead. A former reporter-photographer and editor in the Midwest and Mid-South, he is retired from teaching journalism at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

(Another version of this article is being distributed by InsideSources, an independent purveyor of op-ed material to 300 newspapers, since 2014. http://www.insidesources.com)

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Editorial endorsements: do they still matter?

[yes!]

What else about them….?

For answers, and for tips on interviewing and vetting candidates and more, take a look at the replay of the free Sept. 22, 2016, ASNE-AOJ-Poynter interactive web seminar. How-to is below.

Two editorial page or opinion team leaders, AOJ trustees Nancy Ancrum and Jennifer Hemmingsen, led the discussion with 75 people pre-registered.

Participants said things like "Why would we not do this most valuable of services to our readers?" and "We had to manage the bloviators and grandstanders" [during video-cast interviews].

Here’s how to view the free 57-minute replay:

Copy the long URL below but don’t use it yet; you will paste it into your browser.

http://www.newsu.org/courses/do-news-endorsements-matter/watch

Go to http://newsu.org

If you have a Poynter/NewsU account, log in.
If not, sign up for one; it is free.
Once in, paste the long URL for the webinar in your browser’s address line.
After several seconds of buffering, the replay will begin.

Previous Masthead articles on endorsements, which will remain at these URLs until December 2017, include:

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/Masthead-2014#sun-times resumes endorsements

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/Masthead-2012/#why-end endorsements

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/Masthead-2013#place-for-editorials in digital newsrooms

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/Masthead-2013#vital role of recommending candidates

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/MH2014-a#retracting endorsements gone-bad

https://aoj.wildapricot.org/symposium-news-2015#future-editorial
(47 min video 2015, requires AOJ member sign-in)