Have newspaper political endorsements outlived their purpose?
Melita Garza, associate professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism, is a journalism historian who studies news as an agent of democracy. University of Illinois News Bureau editor Lois Yoksoulian discussed the history and future of presidential endorsements with Garza in light of recent nonendorsement decisions within some news organizations.
Why do some newspapers endorse presidential candidates?
In the early days of the republic, newspapers were partisan tools, often funded by politicians. In the early 1800s, it was fairly common to see publishers and editors as leaders of local political parties. Local and national party tickets were printed in newspapers, and the role of editors and publishers in state conventions was announced in the paper, too.
Such open political involvement today would be seen as unethical and would clearly compromise the news product. As the 19th century progressed, the press became free of party control. By the early 20th century, traditional newspapers pursued the widest audiences possible, emphasizing news that would appeal across the political spectrum.
Advertising subsidized the news pages—the larger the circulation, the more newspapers could charge advertisers. Journalists bolstered their credibility and high standards through the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
The divide between the owner, the publisher and the newsroom became sacrosanct, so much so that when Chicago’s Tribune Tower was completed in 1925, only the two center elevators in the four-elevator bank serving the Nathan Hale lobby of the newspaper stopped on the 4th and 5th floors—the floors where the editorial department was housed. It wasn’t until decades later that those elevators finally began serving all 24 floors, including the Chicago Tribune’s advertising and circulation departments.
At a completely independent newspaper, even the editorial board would have its say without interference from the owner. More often, the publisher controls the editorial board, including having a final say on political endorsements. Ultimately, however, the owner reserves the right to call the shots. After all, it is their money that backs the newspaper.
Not all newspapers endorsed presidential candidates in the past, but those that did typically reflected the publisher’s public policy preferences for the country and the world. Embedded in this point of view are the publisher’s values and ideals. While an editorial board typically has crafted the political endorsements, the final word has always been the publisher’s prerogative. The New York Times, the nation’s newspaper of record, first endorsed a presidential candidate in 1860 when it supported Abraham Lincoln. It has endorsed presidential candidates every four years since, including this year.
Why isn’t a newspaper’s endorsement of a candidate seen as a conflict of interest?
Some newspaper readers historically have been well aware of the sharp divide between news and opinion. In an ideal world, opinion and editorial pages would be clearly labeled and set apart, either on the back pages of the main section or, in larger newspapers, in a stand-alone Sunday section. Some news and editorial departments function like church and state, rigidly separated. For instance, at The Wall Street Journal, one side doesn’t talk to the other. But not all newspapers are church and state. Some allow opinion to creep into the news columns by selecting stories they print or by allowing political opinion to surface.
In the digital era, the distinction between opinion and news has become even more blurred, largely because digital articles tend to come across smartphones, tablets and computers independent of the news “pages.” Content flashes across the screen, and to a scrolling news consumer, it’s not always obvious whether it’s presented as fact or opinion. Even readers who understand this may be skeptical that individual journalists can remain independent of their bosses’ ideas.
What has changed in the newspaper business and political climate that has led papers like The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times to ditch their endorsements?
The Age of the Internet, the creation of Craigslist, and the concomitant migration of advertisements online broke the newspaper revenue model. While there have always been multimillionaire newspaper owners, like William Randolph Hearst who owned the biggest pile of newspapers in the world in the 1930s, today’s newspaper-owning moguls often have other businesses, creating the potential for additional conflicts.
That said, what’s changed the most is neither the newspaper business nor “the political climate.” The big change is the casual acceptance and even applause for an ex-president and current presidential candidate who promises retribution against those who exercise the right of the free press to oppose his policies.
What is the value of candidate endorsements?
Some have said that newspapers as a whole have outlived their purpose. Candidate endorsements offer readers insight into the newspaper’s thinking about the direction and needs of the country and what should be expected from the leader of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. Readers have always been free to take it or leave it. There is little empirical evidence that these presidential endorsements swayed readers to vote one way or another.
Will subscription cancellations in the wake of non-endorsements impact the bottom line for papers like The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times?
Understandably, neither the business nor newsroom sides benefit when circulation drops. A lower number of subscribers still leads to lost advertising revenue. Meanwhile, journalists find a smaller audience for their work, lessening its reach and impact. Most devastatingly, it holds the journalists responsible for the publisher’s decision and punishes them for it. It also harms news consumers, leaving them less informed.
You have to ask, however, whether those 250,000 or so people who canceled their Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post subscription also canceled their Bezos-owned Amazon Prime, Amazon Music and Amazon Cloud accounts—I think not. The only people hurt by the cancellation were the journalists, who probably will face another round of layoffs.
Editor’s note:
To reach Melita Garza, email melitamg@illinois.edu.
—Lois Yoksoulian, University of Illinois News Bureau Physical Sciences and Media Editor