A Fine Point

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The editors who craft the Post-Gazette’s daily stands on the issues affecting the region, the state and the nation hold an on-line conversation with readers about key topics in the news. The PG editorial writers are: Tom Waseleski, Reg Henry, Susan Mannella, Tony Norman and Dan Simpson.  

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Obama by a landslide

 

Tom Waseleski

Newspaper endorsements -- people love 'em or hate 'em. At the Post-Gazette, we think they're important if you intend to have editorials that speak out for the paper on issues of the day.

To the relative few newspapers that run editorials but refrain from endorsing candidates, I always pose this question: Why would you take a position on taxes, wars and other public controversies but not then endorse candidates who may be the collective embodiment of your key positions? It doesn't make sense.

So, here at the PG, where we do endorse (this fall in 22 races and a ballot question), today is a happy day. Happy because the last candidates who traipsed through for endorsement interviews were here yesterday. We are now writing our final endorsement editorials, which will run next week.

Our first endorsement this year ran back on Sept. 28 (for state Auditor General Jack Wagner) and we climaxed with our presidential endorsement on Oct. 12 (for Barack Obama). We'll wrap it all up on Sunday, Nov. 2, with a recap of the endorsements from this cycle. Believe it or not, readers call me every year asking for that because they take it to their polling place. Flattering, yes, and maybe a little scary.

You may be wondering if presidential endorsements by newspapers make a difference. Just ask President John Kerry. A tabulation by Editor & Publisher magazine showed that in 2004, he won the backing of 213 papers, compared to George Bush's 205.

This year the endorsement tally so far is more lopsided. According to E&P's count yesterday, Obama had a landslide of support from 127 papers vs. John McCain's 49. Then today the New York Times released its own endorsement for Obama. Who knows what all this will mean for election day?

Do you read endorsements? Do they carry any weight with you? We're going to do them anyway.

Posted Oct 24 2008, 09:49 AM by Tom Waseleski
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Comments

Dave@OMT wrote re: Obama by a landslide
on Fri, Oct 24 2008 8:36 PM

Endorsements are important, of course, but by the time they come around, I've generally already done my homework, and have pretty much made up my mind about who I'm going to vote for.  I can't think of a single instance in which a newspaper endorsement has cause me to re-think who I'm supporting.  Still, they are generally well written,with a kind of earnest sense of their own self-importance about them, and occasionally even make for compelling reading.

I must say, though, that  I find it troubling to hear that there are people who are are eager to have the PG's list of endorsements so that they can, as you say, "take it to their polling place".   This effectively puts you in the business of doing the voters' thinking for them, and I'm not entirely sure that that's what the framers had in mind as one of the functions of a free press. We already have far too much of that sort of thing in this country, and I think that it's got a lot to do with why our government has been largely dysfunctional for the last couple of decades.

In a perfect world, your readership would be as eager for what you have to say on the news pages as they are for your editorial pages. Then they'd be able to make up their minds for themselves, with facts (presumably) instead of opinion.  The side benefit to this would be that we as a body politic would likely be a lot less "us-and-them" prone; if everybody was able to think of their ideas as their own, instead of just going along with the herd, our politics would be a lot less contentious, it seems to me.  You know, one man, one thought.

But, yes, go ahead and do your endorsements anyway, by all means.