CLEVELAND — Last week, The New York Times announced that it was ending its longstanding practice of publishing political endorsements for New York City campaigns, a tradition that dates back at least to the 19th century.
The Times did not give a reason for its decision, but pointed to the long list of newspapers that had either stopped or severely curtailed their endorsement practices, including the Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun, to name a few. It said endorsements caused confusion among readers about the distinction between opinion and news pages.
What the Times failed to mention are the financial challenges affecting the industry as a whole, which are making it increasingly difficult to pay the staff and other resources that go into the advertising process.
I’m happy to say that The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com have not joined the exodus of supporters. In fact, we began our endorser interviews for the 2024 general election last Monday – the same day the Times announced its withdrawal. The first of the three dozen or so political endorsement statements we plan to publish for this November’s election appeared in the paper and on the website on Wednesday.
I have occasionally criticized the practice of endorsements over the years. But I have not made any blanket criticism.
I believe that the support of elected officials, largely invisible to most voters, is critical to an informed citizenry.
This includes city and county councils and officials, the state legislature, the U.S. Congress, and the slew of judges who run in Ohio each fall. Without the interviews and insights our recommendations provide, voters are left with nothing but campaign posters, partisan infomercials, and television ads for the candidates they can afford.
The recommendations I have criticized relate to offices with a high media presence, to politicians who are constantly in the news: the president, the governor, even our senators.
Strangely—or perhaps not so strangely—the Times says it will retain only the support that voters need least: that of the President of the United States.
A news organization’s endorsement of a president serves purely selfish purposes and actually gives readers the impression that the organization is on the side of the recipient.
Here’s the reality: Who needs us – or the New York Times – to tell you whether you should get your vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Anyone? Is there information that only we have that you need to know before you decide?
In addition, this year you already know which candidate will receive the support of the most newspapers.
For the rest of the ballot, which includes people whose names most of you know only vaguely, you need our help with the hard, difficult work of gathering information, rounding up candidates for interviews, interviewing them, and then reaching a consensus on who is best for the job. And then presenting that to you in what we hope will be a clear and insightful way.
This year, as in many years before, the task of coordinating everything falls to opinion leader Elizabeth Sullivan. Over time, she has developed the process into the most organized and efficient system possible.
The first task is to whittle the list down to a manageable number. It would be impossible to interview and endorse every candidate in our seven-county reporting area, so Sullivan selects the key races that are both most important and most competitive.
That includes skipping some races that she knows won’t be contested. These may be important positions, but it would be a waste of time – ours, yours, and the candidates’ – to do them. Examples include endorsement calls for Democratic U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown of Cuyahoga County or Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce of the state’s northeastern counties. Both have only tacit opposition and are in no serious danger of being voted out of office.
Once that is resolved, the next step is to arrange joint interviews with the candidates in all of Sullivan’s selected races.
Interviews typically last an hour or a little longer and are conducted via video conference. Questions come from members of the eight-person editorial committee (I’m one of them) who have researched the backgrounds and fact sheets submitted by the candidates. They are usually conversational and polite. The committee members then meet to discuss who will receive our recommendation. Then one writes the editorial, which is reviewed by everyone present at the interview.
It’s a completely transparent process where our reasoning is included in the recommendation guide and the interviews are recorded and available to everyone on cleveland.com. We tell you what we like and don’t like, and we show you the work by publishing the interviews.
I would like two things about this process:
Firstly, I hope that all candidates will appear. The format also gives those who do not expect our support the chance to face their opponent and present their arguments in the recorded interview.
Two years ago, none of the three Republican Supreme Court nominees participated in the interview process, and of the Republican Senate primary candidates, only Matt Dolan appeared. Eventual Senate nominee JD Vance declined to interview his Democratic opponent Tim Ryan.
The boycott of the interview is an insult – not so much to us, but rather to the voters of the region and the state who are trying to participate in the electoral process and arm themselves with as much information as possible.
Second, I wish more voters would listen to the interviews and read the recommendations. Feel free to disagree with our conclusions, but do so in an informed way by listening to the interviews first.
This is especially important in judicial elections. They usually draw two serious candidates, but all too often I have sat through these interviews and quickly determined that one candidate was significantly more qualified than the other, only to look at the results in November and find that voters simply chose the familiar name or preferred party. If they had listened to any part of the interview, I think they must have made a different choice.
We know that some people actually take our recommendations for judges with them into the voting booth. You are welcome to do that too.
Our goal is not to tell you how to vote – we just want to give you as much information as possible. You can ignore the recommendations for president if you want… just pay attention to the information our recommendations provide in local and state elections.
Ted Diadiun is on the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
How to contact Ted Diadiun: [email protected]
Do you have anything to say on this topic?
* Send a letter to the editor, which are being considered for publication in print form.
* Please email general questions, comments, or corrections to this opinion article to Elizabeth Sullivan, Director of Opinion, at [email protected].
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