Public trust in the media is probably at an all-time low. That’s their choice, but it virtually guarantees a paper won’t endorse them and reinforces the perception of bias.Īnd of course, there’s a fellow in Palm Beach who has been telling Americans the media are “the enemy of the people” for the past five years or so. Many conservative candidates - specifically Republicans, refuse to meet with editorial boards. Liberal bias is real in the media but so is conservative bias, on a much smaller scale. But editorial boards are uniquely required to sometimes make the customer dissatisfied. News companies are in business, and every business wants to keep the customer satisfied. More: Florida probably won’t issue pardons for pot possession. More: Will Supreme Court justices feel ire of DeSantis foes? Probably not. More: Cruz case revives the capital punishment debate | More: Can abortion save Democrats in midterms? Well, in 56 years working around the South, I’ve never had an editor suggest slanting a story - but, again, there’s no point trying to convince those who don’t believe there’s a wall between newsroom and ivory tower. There’s also a common perception that editorials indicate a bias in news coverage that if we endorse some candidates, we must be in the tank for them in news coverage. Some papers around the country, especially smaller ones, are giving up editorializing altogether, either to save staff cost for interviewing numerous candidates, or in response to readers who won’t miss the opinion pieces.Īudience research indicates some readers resent “being told what to think.” That’s a common misperception - an editorial doesn’t tell you what to think, it tells you what we think - but if readers believe it, there’s no changing their minds, however persuasive we think we are. Basically, it said it could not support any candidate who refuses to recognize the legitimacy of President Biden’s election, or who appeals to the fear and bigotry so common in the Big Lie dogma of the Trump era. The Orlando paper ran an editorial this week explaining why so many of its endorsements went to Democrats. “As long as we are providing value to voters, the editorial board will continue to make endorsements where it matters.” “Even those who don’t agree with our policy positions use our recommendations as a starting point - if we endorse so-and-so, they’ll vote the other way. But they’ve been busy with candidate interviews for local offices in their surrounding counties. Julie Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel, said her papers have stopped endorsing for president and Congress. “The opinion pages feel like the last part of the newsroom to evolve.” “This is part of the overall evolution of our industry,” Kristen DelGuzzi, opinion editor of USA Today, told the Washington Post. Gannett, owner of more than 200 papers nationwide, including this one, recently recommended its papers stop endorsing in congressional races and the 2024 presidential campaign. Senate - mostly Democrats - while others stuck to their local city hall, county commission, state legislative races and U.S. Some recommended candidates for governor and the U.S. Newspapers all over Florida have been running their endorsements in the last couple of weeks. Considering the economics of the news business, especially in print, and the evolution of public tastes since I got my first newspaper job in 1965, more and more publishers are making painful cuts in many areas.Ĭustomer surveys and day-to-day reader interaction indicated that editorials are expendable. I’m probably in the minority on this, both in newsrooms and among readers, but I am saddened by the steady disappearance of opinion pages in newspapers - particularly the retreat from political endorsements.
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