If an independent media is a pillar of democracy and if that independence is compromised by taking a side in an election, any critical election, then the media has contributed to weakening democracy

 

Tradition or Not, Endorsing Candidates in an Election Makes a Mockery of an Independent Media
By Kathy Gannon

The decades-old tradition of US newspapers endorsing presidential candidates makes a mockery of the democratic ideal of an independent media and has contributed to a gradual erosion in the trust of the media. It does a disservice to the readership and to the reporters, whose work, regardless of its quality, becomes a little less trusted.

Elections are not just about the candidate, they are about the voters who must feel they have a source of information they can trust to help them navigate through the election noise. They don’t need to be told what to do. They need to have information they can trust to decide their choice.

I know the outrage over the  Washington Post’s refusal to endorse  a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections is about Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and his perceived affiliation with former US President Donald Trump.

But what of the L.A. Times?

Nika Soo-Shiong, whose family owns the L.A. Times, says the paper  did not endorse  Kamala Harris because of her stand on the war on Gaza. It had nothing to do with Trump.

But this raging controversy has everything to do with the value of an independent media and also the real dangers to democracy by continuing to ignore it – and not just as it pertains to elections.

It is a little scary that it is big news in the US when a newspaper does NOT endorse a presidential candidate. But if an independent media is our industry’s guiding principle – which to me it must be – it would be the story if a newspaper threw its independence out the window to support a candidate in any election, let alone a presidential election.

It is essential for a news organization to be independent if the public is to trust its reporters to do the job of providing them with information they can rely on to make a decision. It is important that the media be the voice of calm, of trusted information, that offers the reader measured, researched information. The reader doesn’t need a dictatorial media.

I am not naive, I know the media may never have been independent, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a principle to strive to uphold. I have never understood how a newspaper can endorse a candidate in an election, never mind a presidential election, and still be arrogant enough to expect its readers to believe the contents of its newspaper.

It might well be that this tradition of the American media endorsing presidential candidates has contributed, at least in part, to why today folks are worried about the state of their democracy. If an independent media is a pillar of democracy and if that independence is compromised by taking a side in an election, any critical election, then the media has contributed to weakening democracy.

Those who would justify endorsements with the argument that editorial boards, which decide the candidate to endorse, are separate from newsrooms is a fine distinction lost on most people, including me and I have been in the news industry for decades.

I fiercely hold to the belief that our duty as the media is to inform, we are not the minders of public thinking; that belongs to the public. When we take sides in a contest our basic duty to inform is compromised because the trust in the information we now provide is gone.

It doesn’t matter that good reporters are still doing great work, it is delusional to believe a newspaper can endorse a candidate, saying we, as The New York Times or Washington Post, or L.A. Times want this particular candidate to win and not expect readers to wonder at the veracity of what they are reading.

Is the information skewed in favor of the newspaper’s candidate? Is the newspaper not reporting something an opponent is saying because they want their candidate to win? The questions are many and valid.

Most readers are seeking information so as to better understand each candidate, even if they lean toward one or the other. There is a vast readership that wants information, but they need to trust the information put before them and that becomes a struggle once a newspaper has already picked a side in the contest.

Even worse, many readers may actually begin to believe the newspaper might even be lying to support the candidate it has endorsed. It certainly opens the door for the candidate the newspaper didn’t pick to make that argument.

It’s also a crazy contradiction that on one hand, we prize the secret ballot when we step up to the ballot box and yet we have newspapers screaming the right choice for us and a whole army of outraged decrying a newspaper’s decision not to.

I realize many in America, people, on both sides of the political divide, are worried about the election, and its outcome, but the public’s lack of trust in the media has only given strength to those who challenge the truth of what they read to further their ends.

Once a newspaper endorses one candidate, any news against the other candidate can easily be dismissed as obvious attempts to trick the public. Even people on the fence cannot be blamed for thinking: “How can I be sure what the newspaper is saying, after all it has already said it wants one candidate to win.”

If an independent media is a pillar of democracy, then the very act of compromising our independence – even if as many say it is to save democracy, it is in fact weakening democracy.

(Kathy Gannon is a longtime former correspondent and bureau chief for the Associated Press in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and a member of the Sapan News Advisory Council. This is a  Sapan News  syndicated feature first published  on Kathy Gannon’s Substack .)