Gotta love big, or formerly big, newspaper editorial page/opinion editors all butt-hurt that Patrick Soon-Shiong of the LA Behind the Times or Jeff Bezos of the Bozos Post won’t do endorsement editorials. This Axios piece has more on other newspapers' trends on this.
The reality? Endorsement editorials by major newspapers, certainly not in presidential races, realistically not in statewide races like governor or U.S. senator, simply don't swing the needle.
Update: So let multiple staffers quit both newspapers, like genocidalist neocon Robert Kagan at the WaPost. Let former editor Marty Baron (with his own forever support for forever war) fulminate away, even as Baron claims the paper — where long-time editorial page editor Fred Hiatt saluted every bit of Forever War every American president ran up the flagpole — was once known for "courage."
In a flip the other way, Soon-Shiong's daughter salutes the Times endorsing nobody, because of the Harris-Biden support for the genocide in Gaza, while specifically noting her statement was not an endorsement of Trump. In turn, The Wrap's Ross Lincoln called her claim "risible," which, maybe it is to some degree, but which also says a lot about where The Wrap is coming from, including on itself maybe running flak for Kamala is a Zionist Cop.
And, with that? I might have to do a second piece off this. Beyond performance theater, we're in the land of hypocrisy.
And, this isn't anything new. It's been the case for at least 20 years.
Says who? Says me?
No; so said newspaper industry insider analysts 20 years ago at American Journalism Review. Specifically, author Tim Porter was former assistant managing editor at the San Francisco Examiner and crunched the information, along with noting politicos halfway admit this was the case back then. I remember reading this story in print 20 years ago and getting my eyes opened. Teh Google found it for me anew.
And, to start with, per Porter, if newspapers had limited endorsement reach then, based on older data before the Net started eroding their power further?
Research on the electoral influence of newspaper endorsements is scarcer than a liberal at a Wall Street Journal editorial board meeting. Most of the data was compiled before the burgeoning Internet and the cacophony of cable TV further dulled whatever edge a newspaper endorsement gave one candidate over another.
They've got even less now.
Porter then referenced a heavyweight in the industry who had written a book about that very subject.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote about newspaper endorsements in her 2000 book, "Everything You Think You Know About Politics and Why You're Wrong."
"The direct effect of editorials does not appear to be significant enough to find," Jamieson said in an interview. "The effect of newspaper endorsements is largely created through advertising about them that is sponsored by the candidate."
Even then, Jamieson and others interviewed for this article agree, the impact of endorsements on national or even regional elections – contests in which candidates are well-known among voters – is negligible
There you go.
But wait, that's not all. Jamieson had boatloads of info:
"Many Americans in 1996 had no idea which presidential candidate their newspaper supported; many more had the wrong idea," Jamieson writes of an Annenberg study of that year's election. "To judge from the responses, many people were guessing." The findings included:
• Among readers of papers that had endorsed President Clinton, "three-quarters reported that fact; 11 percent reported their paper had endorsed Bob Dole; and 14 percent reported their paper had endorsed no one."
• Among readers of papers that had endorsed Dole, "less than one-half" knew that, while one-third thought their paper had endorsed Clinton.
• Of those who knew their newspaper's endorsement, 1 percent said it played a "great deal" and 10 percent said it played "somewhat" of a role in their voting decision. "Of that 11 percent, about a quarter had the endorsement wrong."
More recently, a Pew Center for the People & the Press study released in January, which measured media influences on voters during the 2004 presidential campaign, concluded that "newspaper endorsements are also less influential than four years ago, and dissuade as many Americans as they persuade."
THERE you go. And, that's going back 24-28 years ago.
Well, no, one more. Porter has a quote from the editorial page head of the Old Gray Lady itself at that time:
"I don't think anybody who has a job like mine," says Gail Collins, editorial page editor of the New York Times, "is deluded that many people change their opinion about who they're going to vote for for president when they see the Times editorial."
NOW there you go.
So, why all the butt-hurt editorial editors and editorial columnists and writers today?
Among the younger set, say, below age 45, maybe below age 50, ignorance may be one factor. They may not even know who Jamieson is.
But, at the same time, they may be the ones who have least internalized how short newspapers' reach is today.
Maybe they're in denialism? Self-delusion at a conscious level of something they subconsciously know is true.
As someone on the far side of 50, I also think this is the "social media generation," whether Z, Millennial, Post-Millennial, or Post Toasties that has other reasoning behind being butt-hurt.
Kabuki theater.
Now that, said, as Porter goes on to note, with quotes from Collins and others, back then, local and regional endorsements mattered. They may still do so today.
And, not just on people.
I helped kill a bond election in my Dallas suburb in 2006, and it needed to be killed, as it was driven by the infamous Larry D. Lewis. It lost by a 52-48 margin, and both Lancaster ISD Superintendent Lewis and Lancaster City Manager Jim Landon were furious, though they didn't show me that much anger in person. On Lewis' side, he didn't know yet, but soon found out, how much I knew about problems with a school bond from two years prior. He still doesn't know about all the off-the-record personal stuff I was told. On Landon, I already saw the housing bubble coming. He shortly thereafter decamped to Florida's Gold Coast, where it hit him in the face.
Anyway, I have little doubt that my words made for the margin of defeat.
Now, if the two papers above, or the NYT, or whomever, wanted to catch attention, at least in the chattering class? An endorsement of either Libertarian Chase Oliver or Green Jill Stein would do that. Ain't happening.
Another option? Do like Reason magazine did a week or two ago with all its staffers, except confining yourself to editorial staff. Give each one, by name, 2-3 paragraphs to say who they're voting for and why. (Actually, Soon-Shiong allegedly asked for something like that, in a pro-con roundup, and staff refused.)
That itself was interesting. Setting aside one person apparently ineligible to vote as a foreign national, and another who may have moved too recently, the results? Eleven for Oliver, one for Oliver if they vote, two for Harris, four not voting plus one who never votes on principle, one possibly not voting, one write-in for Nikki Haley, one split as of the time of the story between Oliver and Trump (over "the left's" alleged antisemitism — nice to see one open Zionist at Reason, JD Tuccille), one Trump, one protest write-in for a Reason staffer.
To summarize with a bit of math and how I split out a few comments? That's 12 for Oliver, 2 Harris, 5.5 not voting, 1 Haley, 1.5 Trump, 1 true write-in.
So, first, Reason is lower-l libertarian, but not necessarily Libertarian Party libertarian. Second, several specifically hate the Mises Mice. Of 23 total, Oliver gets a bare majority.
That said, per the above about the AJR story, at its end and local and regional races? Each staffer was asked about one other race they were keeping their eye on. Several mentioned ballot propositions, not personal races by candidates. Of that,several noted ranked choice voting initiatives, several noted abortion issues, and a couple noted Florida's marijuana legalization initiative.
Finally, a bit more thought on the Axios piece. Papers like the Minneapolis Star-Tribune also aren't doing presidential endorsements, but announced this weeks if not months ago. That's the problem with the two big newspapers above — the timing. Even if their owners aren't stopping endorsements for craven reasons, they leave themselves open to that. (And, given both Soon-Shiong and Bezos have lots of federal ties and issues, I think they ARE doing it for craven business reasons.) And, as for the Old Gray Lady in New York no longer doing LOCAL endorsements, but still doing presidential ones, that confirms they see themselves — and their subscriber base — as national newspaper first.
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