I'm writing this diary so as to pass on some useful knowledge I gained tonight: Just because your local paper endorses McCain, do not assume the entire corporation is in the GOP's pocket. Sometimes it is, but not always.
On Saturday, the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed John McCain (interesting sidenote: they endorsed John McCain, NOT the McCain-Palin ticket; in fact, Sarah Palin wasn't mentioned a single time in the 24-paragraph endorsement. Curious, no?). The paper endorsed Bush both times, so this wasn't much of a surprise.
But then I went to a bad place (i.e., conspiracy thinking): I suspected Gannett, the owner of the Enquirer, of influencing all its outlets. After all, Gannett's senior execs make many millions a year in total compensation, so they are motivated personally by McCain's tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy.
So, were Gannett's papers endorsing McCain significantly more frequently than the localities in which they were located?
Gladly, so far, it seems that is not the case. Based on the endorsements listed here in StuHunter's article, The Editorial Endorsement Blow-Out, I looked up the list of Gannett's daily papers (located in their most recent annual report) and compared it to the endorsement lists.
Here's how it breaks down across Gannett's dailies:
Endorsing Obama: 10 papers in 10 states, total Sunday readership ~1.4 million
Endorsing McCain: 4 papers in 3 states, total Sunday readership ~0.5 million
(Southwestern Ohio, Tennessee, and S. Carolina, so generally red areas)
These numbers will likely change as we get closer and more papers come out with endorsements, but at least there's no reason to suspect systematic bias at the corporate level. So, for that, I'm thankful.
Of course, on the larger issue of endorsements, I'm still unconvinced that our newspapers should be engaged in that at all. You don't see any other companies systematically endorsing candidates up and down the ticket. My personal view is that newspapers, and all news outlets, should be SOLELY concerned with laying out factual comparisons of the options and candidates to help voters inform their opinions, NOT to form the voters' opinions directly through endorsements. But then I'm a liberal; while we're happy to help people learn how to think, we tend to frown upon telling them what to think.