{"id":17637,"date":"2017-05-16T07:59:12","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T13:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=17637"},"modified":"2017-05-16T07:59:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T13:59:23","slug":"opinion-should-newspapers-even-make-endorsements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/05\/opinion-should-newspapers-even-make-endorsements\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Should newspapers even make endorsements?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Martin<\/a>

Martin Kidston<\/p><\/div>\n

When I was a kid growing up, my stepfather often warned that I not let my \u201ccanary mouth override my alligator ass.\u201d In other words, sometimes it\u2019s a good idea to keep your\u00a0opinions quiet and avoid biting off more than you can chew.<\/p>\n

I rarely listened, but it might have been good advice for the Missoulian, which is picking up the pieces today from its endorsement of congressional candidate Greg Gianforte\u00a0on Sunday. The fallout over that endorsement caused a rapid backlash on social media and the cancellation of numerous subscriptions.<\/p>\n

For the past 20 years, during each election cycle, I\u2019ve been asked why newspapers still practice the archaic art of endorsing political candidates. My answer has always been \u201ctradition,\u201d one that dates back to at least 1860, when the New York Times endorsed Abraham Lincoln for president.<\/p>\n

But in the 21st century, things are not what they were in 1860, and I\u2019ve begun to give the question second thought. Newspapers are no longer exclusive in serving as public informants, and their opinions have become fractured in a world that\u2019s too often based on opinion and partisanship.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not alone in contemplating the practice of endorsements. A reporter with the Denver Post recently asked her own paper\u2019s editorial page editor the same question, though the answer she received was as vague as my answer has been in previous years.<\/p>\n

According to the reporter, her editorial page editor said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of that tradition that if you\u2019re going to go to the trouble to have a printing press and a newsroom and put your message out and try to cover public policy, then you also have the right as the owner of that paper to express your opinion. That\u2019s how an editorial page got started to begin with, in trying to make arguments that would be good for society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>I\u2019m sure most would say they don\u2019t need a newspaper opinion to tell them what\u2019s good for society. One might also suggest that a consistent message would go a long way in persuasion, but the Missoulian has been far from consistent.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s been all over the board with its \u201copinion\u201d of who should represent Montana at large.<\/p>\n

Last November, the newspaper endorsed Denise Juneau over incumbent Ryan Zinke. In doing so, the newspaper wrote that it wasn\u2019t \u201centirely satisfied with (Zinke\u2019s) performance in Congress.\u201d It added that it was \u201cdeeply troubled by (Zinke\u2019s) continuing commitment to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last line makes the newspaper\u2019s newfound support for Gianforte somewhat confusing, given the candidate\u2019s own lockstep support for President Trump. What\u2019s more, the newspaper lambasted Gianforte during his run for governor six short months ago, saying \u201che has not shown much interest in public service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen challenged to consider opposing sides of issues outside his area of expertise, such (as) refugee resettlement, Gianforte has an unfortunate tendency to shut down discussion,\u201d the Missoulian wrote last October. \u201cA successful public servant must be willing to have uncomfortable conversations on controversial subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that Gianforte has successfully assuaged the Missoulian\u2019s earlier concerns, convincing it that he will now be the public servant it feared he wouldn\u2019t be six months ago. But the Missoulian is now under new leadership, that being the corporate operators housed at the Billings Gazette which, to no surprise, also endorsed Gianforte.<\/p>\n

But this is straying from the point, which goes back to the practice of endorsing one candidate over another. That editorial page editor at the Denver Post said, \u201cThe reason we do endorsements is because we\u2019re trying to help people understand complicated political questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is, does the public even care what a newspaper thinks any more than it cares about what I think in this column? According to a Pew Research Center study, the answer is no.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an age saturated in social media and marked by an increasingly fragmented media landscape, the role of newspaper endorsements appears to be dwindling,\u201d the center wrote in 2007. \u201cIn fact, almost seven in 10 Americans said their local newspaper\u2019s endorsement had no impact on who they cast their ballot for in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the survey, a local newspaper\u2019s endorsement would influence just 14 percent of its readers in a positive way, while 14 percent would be negatively influenced. In comparison, an endorsement from Bill Gates would bring similar results.<\/p>\n

Like the editorial page editor at the Denver Post noted, it\u2019s a newspaper\u2019s right to make its opinions known. It\u2019s also the right of readers to respond accordingly, even if that means severing their support for the newspaper once it makes its political preference known.<\/p>\n

That may be the strongest opinion of them all.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Missoula Current<\/a>, an independent online newspaper, of which\u00a0Martin Kidston is the founding editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid growing up, my stepfather often warned that I not let my \u201ccanary mouth override my alligator ass.\u201d In other words, sometimes it\u2019s a good idea to keep your\u00a0opinions quiet and avoid biting off more than you can chew. I rarely listened, but it might have been good advice for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":17638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3864],"tags":[335,225],"class_list":["post-17637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-greg-gianforte","tag-missoulian","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17640,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17637\/revisions\/17640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}