Newspapers and Politics

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

For the first time in 71 years, the Chicago Sun-Times is not endorsing a candidate for the 2012 elections. The reason cited by publisher John Barron and editorial page editor Tom McNamee is that the job of print media is to report about the candidates, elections, and issues rather than 'spinning' to favor the endorsed candidate above all else. [Source]

We have come to doubt the value of candidate endorsements by this newspaper or any newspaper, especially in a day when a multitude of information sources allow even a casual voter to be better informed than ever before.

It's true that as time's passed, the internet's cast a wider net into print media, television, and radio. With the click of a mouse, millions can watch a debate, read transcripts of speeches, and verify a candidate's voting record.

Research on the matter suggests that editorial endorsements don’t change many votes, especially in higher-profile races. Another school of thought, however — often expressed by readers — is that candidate endorsements, more so than all other views on an editorial page, promote the perception of a hidden bias by a newspaper, from Page One to the sports pages.

Below are the newspaper endorsement results from 2008:



Since endorsements were tracked during elections in the 1940's, candidates who've received the most endorsements have won the elections except for a few cases: FDR and Harry Truman won their elections while receiving few endorsements and John Kerry received a higher number of endorsements but lost to President George W. Bush (his second term). [Source]

As for media bias regarding newspaper endorsements, a paper from Brown University economists Brian Knight and Chun Fang Chiang suggests that has little effect on voter opinion:

Endorsements for the Democratic candidate from left-leaning newspapers are less influential than endorsements from neutral or right-leaning newspapers and likewise for endorsements from papers sympathetic to Republican candidates. Knight said these results “suggest that voters are sophisticated and attempt to filter out any bias in media coverage of politics.”

[Source]

1. Do newspaper endorsements of candidates influence your decision in elections?
2. In your opinion, what is the role of print media when it comes to elections?
3. Do you measure a newspaper's credibility by the candidates they endorse?
4. Do you determine whether a newspaper is right-leaning, left-leaning, or centrist by the candidates they've endorsed through the years?
5. Do you think print media is a dying market that should be revived or should it move aside in favor of internet publications?

EDIT: Forgot to add that it's not just this election that the Sun-Times is refusing to publish an endorsement, but all future elections as well. [Full Article]

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

We don't have endorsements here. Everybody pretty much already knows which media stands where, so it'd be a shock if, say, a pro-socialist media favors the pro-democrat stance and vice-versa.

Of course that was mostly said from a non-US perspective.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

A part of me likes the endorsements here. It's a rare moment when the media are as hones as yours is about which way they lean. I think it'd be much more helpful to everyone if a news organization came out and said "We support X. We'll try to be as objective as possible, but remember that we support X and take that into account."

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

What I find strange with all this endorsement stuff is that I vote for guy X and not for guy Y; but then guy X drops out of the race and essentially says "I want my votes to go for guy Y". Excuse me? I do remember explicitly NOT voting for guy Y.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's an odd thing. The really weird stuff is when you get people endorsing candidates they spent the entire election cycle bashing (see Huntsman's endorsement of Romney). But it's the US, so it's winner-take-all, and you must vote for the least of all evils presented, not your ideal candidate. C'est la vie.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

The strangest thing about US elections is that they continue for more than a year. Eternal circus!

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's an odd outgrowth of a bunch of things. First, our free speech laws would presumably bar the types of restrictions on when a candidate can campaign that exist elsewhere. Second, for some reason states can't just hold their primaries on the same day, so we have this drawn-out process. I mean, the primaries alone took nearly 6 months in 2008, and will take just as long this time around. That's ridiculous. Third, the winner-take-all system generates these broad parties that then need to winnow down their candidates for office. Unlike in most countries where Paul, Romney, and Gingrich would be in separate parties, they're all under the big tent of the Republicans here. And that, in turn, is an inevitable result of our first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system.

tl;dr getting rid of permanent campaigns would require a fundamental reworking of the American legal and political landscape.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Wait wait, why can't all states have their primaries on the same day? I mean, let those guys campaign for a month or two across the country, then have primaries in 50 states, and determine the nominee in just 1 day and after say 2 months of campaigning. Then the party can focus on preparing for the general election. Is it unachievable?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Well, New Hampshire literally has a state law saying they must have the first primary in the nation. It's a point of pride for us... for some reason. So, spin that out across the country, and remember that it's the state party committees, not the national parties, that sets the dates for the primaries. Try getting 50 independent groups of politicians to water down the importance of their state. You think anyone would campaign in New Hampshire or Iowa if the primaries were all held on the same day? Hell no. They'd campaign in states that could actually turn the tide in their favor - California, Texas, New York, etc. So these individual state party groups are directly encouraged to be on their own, because that way their state gets special attention from the candidates. I mean, has anyone come out against corn ethanol subsidies? No, because Iowa grows a fuckton of corn. Gingrich said he'd only allow the Northern Pass, a series of power lines from Canada to Connecticut passing through the White Mountain National Forest in NH, if they buried the lines. Think he'd have noticed if NH voted the same day that Ohio did? Hell no.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

So a tiny state gets huge extra weight just because they've written in their local law that they should hold the primaries before anybody else? What if another 20-30 states write the same thing in their local law?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The national parties, for some reason I don't fully understand, have threatened anyone who attempts to usurp the New Hampshire primary. There was a threat to not recognize Florida's delegates in the last election season because they violated the rules designed to protect New Hampshire's primacy. IIRC, the Democrats actually did it, and I think the Republicans let it slide (I could be wrong). But then, it only mattered for the Democrats, because each party had different rules for how to assign delegates (Republicans won all of a state's delegates if they got the most votes, Democrats shared them based on their proportion of the vote in a state).

The entire primary process is incomprehensible. Do you even know how they do caucuses? You stand in your candidate's corner, and if your guy has the fewest votes, then he's knocked out and you need to go to another corner until one corner has more than 50% of the votes in the room. In between, leaders of the other corners get to yell at you about why you should join them instead of the other corners. It sounds like a playground game, but it's a pretty big deal overall.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Fine, let's leave New Hampshire to be first. But what prevents the remaining 49 states of killing each other for the #2 date on the primaries?

It appears to me that the bottom line of the whole game is to keep the populace occupied for a significant amount of time with nonsense. A kind of distraction taken directly from the Bread & Circuses books.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It might be. There's a minor argument to be made that the drawn-out contests allow a lot more examination of the candidates, but I'm personally of the opinion that it's not worth the costs. I mean, yeah, Romney's national lead has evaporated, but will Romney really govern any differently than Gingrich, if he turns out to lose? I'd wager it'd be fairly similar overall, at least in terms of policies. If anything, it'd just shift all of this scrutiny to before the "big day," rather than before Super Tuesday (when the majority of delegates are assigned).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Most of those guys have been around for years. Most people must already know their stances on the most important issues. I think a month or two maybe, is more than enough for them to emphasize on those stances and make some points about their opponents and about their prospects of winning the general election, and the subsequent policies they'd pursue as potential president. Beyond that, all the rest of this non-stop talking seems like useless and endless chewing and chewing of bullshit stuff until the viewer's brain turns into jelly.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Yep. But hey, CNN needs something to report on, since they're not reporting on Syria or Greece/EU debt or the like.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Nothing compares to the Situation Room, with all those gadgets that never work properly, and the 281 talking-heads splitting the TV screen into 281 pieces and all of them talking at the same time!!!111



And, and.... ooooh, and all those Tweets! Breaking news! Someone tweeted an ingenious thought while being in the toilet...

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I kinda love how they can break everything down on the actual election nights, but then, I generally hold election-night results parties, so it's mainly entertaining background. Other than that, give me an anchor reading to a single camera, please.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Elections-schmelections, ANY excuse for holding a party counts!

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

While that is true, you guys are leaving out the most important (from a pragmatic stance) thing. The influx of money that a campaign brings.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Really sets the wheel of the economy turning, doesn't it.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The amount of money is pretty small. We get more from a single NASCAR race here in NH than we do from the entire several-month-long run-up to a campaign, even when the campaigns are competitive for both parties. Spending in this campaign was relatively low. It's definitely not worth the trouble, IMO.

The real key is that we get a lot of pork because we're important to presidential politics.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

One argument I've read is that going state by state will allow less funded candidates a more even playing field, since they won't have to worry about funding advertising and campaign stops in all 50 states at once. They can test the waters a little and see how feasible it would be to continue the campaign. A better performance than expected could also help them raise money.

At the same time, it pisses me off that two candidates dropped out after only two states voted/caucused, especially since Iowa and New Hampshire are first mainly out of tradition, and not because they are necessarily representative of the nation at large. Not that I thought the Huntsman campaign was going that great, but it's pretty lame how any Huntsman supporters in the remaining 48 states were pretty much told "you can't have your first choice" based solely on the voters of the first 2 states.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Same here really. We have our right leaning papers and our left and they give more favourable coverage to the candidates depending on where they lie. But they rarely, as far as I can remember, actively endorse anyone.

There's actually a battle going on in my city right now between one of our major papers and the mayor. He didn't like the coverage on him during the election so he's blocked them from official press conferences (yeah, he's spiteful like that.) They are pissed and are on a campaign to bring him down. It's all very funny.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Print media could still continue to exist, but they will have to adapt to the new realities and diversify between print and digital version. There are many people who still prefer (or only have access to) print media rather than online, while the more urbanised segments are now primarily relying on digital media... so the media should adapt accordingly. But it certainly is not an "either-or" game between print and digital media.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I would have thought the Internet to be more important in rural than in urban areas.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

My impression tells me otherwise. =)

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

I’m not surprised that the Sun Times is not endorsing a candidate at this point. Since it is Chicago’s left leaning major newspaper, supporting Obama during the primaries when Obama is running unopposed is pretty pointless. The Sun Times position is more gutless than unbiased.

You said a paper from Brown University economists Brian Knight and Chun Fang Chiang suggests that has little effect on voter opinion. Really? Political analysis from economists? That’s like getting a restaurant review from a mortician. That’s not exactly their area of expertise.

1. Do newspaper endorsements of candidates influence your decision in elections?

Not really. But then I’m not everybody. Some people take endorsements pretty seriously. Especially the candidates.
2. In your opinion, what is the role of print media when it comes to elections?

Print media is a news filter. That’s why there are competing news sources. Newspapers are going to have different perspectives. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be editorial pages.
3. Do you measure a newspaper's credibility by the candidates they endorse?

No. I measure a newspaper by their news, writing and credibility. I read a variety of newspapers.
4. Do you determine whether a newspaper is right-leaning, left-leaning, or centrist by the candidates they've endorsed through the years?

None of the above. I determine their perspective from their overall content. I don’t pay attention to their endorsements, but then again, I’m not everybody.
5. Do you think print media is a dying market that should be revived or should it move aside in favor of internet publications?

Most of the papers have a print and an online version. The market will be determined by their subscribership. Since print media is paid and almost all online versions are not, I would suspect that the print versions are still pretty robust. Since there is now a choice, the print versions aren’t as healthy as they used to be, but I wouldn’t count them out yet.

I anticipate that online subscriptions will eventually follow the model of The New York Times which allows 20 articles per month for free and then demands a subscription to view more for the rest of the month. I am an online subscriber to The New York Times.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I’m not surprised that the Sun Times is not endorsing a candidate at this point. - The editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times says they're not going to be endorsing any more candidates in the future, starting with this election.

Political analysis from economists? That’s like getting a restaurant review from a mortician. That’s not exactly their area of expertise. -- Statistics are part of economics so even if the subject isn't part of their major, the methods and research are more than likely still part of course study.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

The editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times says they're not going to be endorsing any more candidates in the future, starting with this election.

That is a claim that they are making at the moment because it is politically expedient for them to be doing that right now. Only time will tell when that statement, and possibly the people that made that statement, are long forgotten.

Statistics are part of economics so even if the subject isn't part of their major, the methods and research are more than likely still part of course study.

Statistics is a tool used in a lot of disciplines. Interpreting the statistical analysis regarding journalism or politics is not the expertise of economists any more than it would be for an insurance actuary.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Herbert Simon, Anthony Downs

"Statistics is a tool used in a lot of disciplines. Interpreting the statistical analysis regarding journalism or politics is not the expertise of economists any more than it would be for an insurance actuary."

The JOP, APSR and APSJ editorial staff would heartily disagree with you. But as the three premier political science journals in the states, what would they know.

What is more surprising is that the RES which is only typical rated in the top ten political science journals is 20 years behind the rest of the discipline. But then again, most of the media stuff comes from the sociology side of the political science discipline. Zaller covered how useless endorsements were in 1992.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

The JOP, APSR and APSJ editorial staff would heartily disagree with you.

They believe that economists should be doing statistical analysis regarding political science? I’m not questioning the results. I’m questioning the source.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Yes, the lines between psychology, political science, sociology and economics are very blurry at a level beyond the most basic level of education.

In many ways, due to the lack of mathematics education in undergraduate political science, the political science research is led by the nose by economists and sociologists.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think the idea of the objective media is a big lie a lot of people were suckered into believing. The media is not now nor has it ever been objective, and it has always been run on a for-profit margin. At one point papers were loudly, proudly, and explicitly partisan, and they could be entertainingly so. Now they're boring. Bring back the partisan papers!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

As long as an outlet is honest about having a perspective, its a good thing.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

1) No. My favorite candidates never receive establishment endorsements.
2) Their role is to promote the interests of their owners.
3) No. I always take published material with a grain of salt.
4) No. That is obvious from their editorial content.
5) There will probably always be room for a physical copy somewhere.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

1. Do newspaper endorsements of candidates influence your decision in elections?

Nope.

2. In your opinion, what is the role of print media when it comes to elections?

Reporters should report the facts. Editorial writers should editorialize.

3. Do you measure a newspaper's credibility by the candidates they endorse?

Hmm. Yes, probably I would. But a reputation for accuracy cannot be built on one thing alone.


4. Do you determine whether a newspaper is right-leaning, left-leaning, or centrist by the candidates they've endorsed through the years?

To a small extent.


5. Do you think print media is a dying market that should be revived or should it move aside in favor of internet publications?

I believe much of the world does not yet have internet access (let alone can read). Print can fill that hole. Internet is a superior medium to print in many ways.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

Could the key be the newspapers that switch parties? Kind of like swing voters, maybe the more moderate newspapers are a reflection of which way it's going to go.

1. Do newspaper endorsements of candidates influence your decision in elections?
Not usually for big elections, but maybe for some smaller ones that don't get much coverage. They won't make up my mind for me, but I'll take what they say into consideration. When it comes to voting for judges, I'll usually either rely on newspapers or legal group endorsements (e.g., the county bar association).

2. In your opinion, what is the role of print media when it comes to elections?
Provide fair and accurate coverage of the candidates and where they stand. Publish letters to the editor from different political perspectives, and be fair about it.

3. Do you measure a newspaper's credibility by the candidates they endorse?
I'd like to say yes, in some cases. Like, any paper that endorsed Bush in 2004 has no credibility in my opinion. Then again, I don't remember which newspapers would have endorsed him aside from the obvious, so my judgment of their credibility is a victim of my memory.

4. Do you determine whether a newspaper is right-leaning, left-leaning, or centrist by the candidates they've endorsed through the years?
I think it's more the articles and editorials that are published on a regular basis that give me that impression, since endorsements come so rarely.

5. Do you think print media is a dying market that should be revived or should it move aside in favor of internet publications?
Well... I think it still has a place, as long as it can make enough money. I'd like it to stick around, but I don't often use it - I'm more likely to read articles from it that are published online. The danger with internet publications is that they sometimes move too quickly for good editorial work, and it can be easy to forget that a blog isn't necessarily journalism.