About three weeks ago the Chron, in a fairly well-written piece, pondered whether or not all of the endorsements being touted by various local candidate mattered a hill of beans in the final results? I think it's a good question, and one that the Chron might want to turn inward when evaluating how they cover elections.
The short version of this post: I think newspapers, especially regional newspapers, should get out of the endorsement business altogether.
The long version? Well, if you have some free time and want to spend a couple of minutes of your life, that you'll never get back, read on.....
At the National and State level I don't think the endorsements matter. As an example of this I'll simply remind you that a large majority of newspapers backed Wendy(?!?) Davis for Governor and all but one backed Leticia Van de Putte for Lt. Governor. Few cared. In the 2014 race for US Senate around half of newspaper editorial boards endorsed Democratic challenger David Alameel. Even fewer cared.
There was a time when media news coverage of State politics was limited solely to the local fishwrap. Those days are gone. This holds doubly true for National politics where it's increasingly obvious that regional editorial boards don't understand the nuance and, especially, the external factors that voters take into consideration for broad, global issues. There's also (in Houston) an abundance of proof that the Editorial Board is out of touch with local voters. (Note: they often use this as an important, they consider fatal, critique of local politicians when calling for their ouster.)
Locally, it's a little less clear but I believe that the end-result is obvious: Newspaper endorsements are no longer needed, nor paid all that much attention to. They also hurt the objectivity of the newspaper when reporting the "news" due to obvious conflicts of interest between the policy priorities of the organizations thinkers and the quality and perspective of the news that's reported on a day to day basis. For proof of that read the following then think about the perspective of the Chron's transportation reporting over the last decade plus.
Then there's the question of whether or not endorsements matter. For instance, today the Chronicle endorsed incumbent Brenda Stardig for City Council District A. They will no doubt, when the election is said and done, count this as a "win" for their endorsement process. But should they?
The only other candidate in this race is on the fringes. Iesheia K. Ayers Wilson is a political novice with almost no funding and no meaningful base of support within the district. This doesn't mean that she shouldn't be running (of course she should) but it also doesn't mean that she's a very severe threat to Stardig either. Critics will, of course, point to Helena Brown who beat Stardig after the latter's first term in a low-turnout election where Stardig ran one of the worst campaigns in recent memory. In that election however, the Chron endorsed Stardig which had little effect on the voters.
In other races it's too soon to tell what the effect is going to be. In some cases it appears that the choice is fairly straightforward and in some cases it's a little more complicated. The problem is, by endorsing based on one set of standards, the Chronicle is all but ignoring that different Districts may have very different priorities.
What the editorial board seems to want (when available) is a candidate who is anti-TIRZ (their new 'cause') pro public-private partnership, for infrastructure repair (although they've been mute about the issue for years, preferring local pols follow "trinket" journalism instead), for lifting the pillow-soft voter imposed revenue cap and for doing something about the pension mess (but we're not sure exactly what). They are also including HER Ordinance in every endorsement, preferring to endorse candidates who support it but settling for ones that opposed on procedural grounds instead of due to the thorny issue of gender self-identification.
It's all very cookie-cutter and all very much in-line with the type of reporting that the Chron is favoring these days. Ask yourself this: The Chron is running many "news" stories critical of TIRZ of late but when was the last time you saw one critical of a public-private partnership? The coverage of HER Ordinance almost seems to be vetted through Mayor Parker's office and they're treading very, very lightly on the pension issue.
It would be better, for the Houston region, if they dropped this silliness and freed up the news desks to report on every aspect of local politics instead of just those the senior editorial staff has publically declared to be a priority.
All of this is before we got to the issue of resources. And, if you haven't been reading or haven't figured it out yet, I feel the entire Op/Ed department to be a huge waste of. Not only the Editorial Board (which I call the Chron's bag of idiots) but also the entire group of columnists and the high-priced doodler. To be honest, the Chronicle's "other voices" guest editorials are often more insightful than the in-house brand. Taking a pair of hedge-trimmers to that entire budget would be the best thing. Then you redeploy resources to hiring some beat reporters to cover things like the County Government, The Port of Houston and all of these public/private entities that the Chron likes so much.
There are two reasons this won't happen:
1. Tradition. Newspapers are still living in the pre-Internet age, where they are the primary (If not sole) purveyor of the local news narrative. In print media, traditions are very hard to break. It's why so many newspapers are watching their coffers run dry before they make needed changes.
2. Ego. Pure and simple. The members of the editorial board LOVE the idea that they are the carriers of unique information that they are allowed to dole out to the public selectively. They enjoy their secret meetings with candidates and local members of the ruling class to the point that suggestions they live stream those meetings online is often met with derision.
It should also be noted that reason one is driven, in part, by reason number two which makes them self-reinforcing and unlikely to be undone in the near future. This is not just a Houston Chronicle issue however but an issue for the industry as a whole.
I was asked recently, by a Chron employee: "When did you EVER like anything the Chron has done". My answer was that back when Houston had two competing newspapers I liked the work that they both were doing very much. After the Post went away the Chron started a long, slow, spiral into the depths of BadMedia that shows little sign of stopping. They still have some quality reporters on staff but the management and editorial team is bringing the quality of the product down.
This issue however, has less to do with the Chron's general (sad) decline and more to do with the changing roles of regional news dailies. Editorial Boards, despite being relics of a bygone era, are wastes of resources that can be better utilized actually going out and covering the news. It would be nice if the powers that be at the publications realize this, but I'm not holding my breath that they will.
One last thought: Ask yourself this. Do you care, or will you give any weight to, who the Chronicle endorses for either Mayor or Controller?
Exactly.
