Newspapers endorsing candidates

By Austin Bates

By now you've probably heard of various newspapers endorsing one of the presidential candidates. Recently, the Chicago Tribune made news by endorsing a democratic nominee for the first time in its 161 year existence. The Los Angeles Times also made news by endorsing Barack Obama after 36 years of endorsing no one. These are just a few of the many papers across the nation that are endorsing political candidates. So the question becomes whether their actions have an effect on who the next president will actually be or not.

According to NPR reporters, it does. Specifically, Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher says that editorial endorsements of candidates can determine who the next president might be. He related that in 2004, when John Kerry ran against George Bush, in the remaining 15 toss up states, he looked at the number and size of newspaper endorsements. Based on that, he says he correctly predicted what candidate would win what state 14 out of 15 times.

Now this is of course an unofficial method, and anecdotal at best, but the question still remains: can a newspaper endorsement influence who the next president will be? I would say "yes" as well. A newspaper, despite recent declines in readership, is still a very trusted, very much respected source of information. To many, a newspaper might be the most trusted source of news available. So when these papers then endorse a political candidate, why wouldn't their readers, especially the dedicated ones, instantly jump on board with their judgment?

Another question I have is whether these papers should endorse a candidate. After all, as I mentioned, newspapers are one of the most trusted sources of news by many, so should they be tainting that trust, that reputation of mostly unbiased reporting with a political endorsement? Politics is one of the fastest ways to alienate people in a discussion, so why would a newspaper, especially at this time of their existence, risk alienating many potential readers by endorsing a candidate?

My thoughts are that they should never endorse a political candidate. After all, when reporting news, one is supposed to remain objective, unbiased, and outside of the current events (with most topics). While you might argue that endorsing a candidate is something else entirely, I think that it ultimately isn't, and makes a paper, in general, look opinionated. If a newspaper can have an opinion on a political candidate, who's to say it might not have an opinion on other topics that it's reporting on?

Bottom line, a newspaper probably shouldn't endorse any political candidate, ever. Reporting avenues get accused too often as it is with having an agenda.