During the 2016 election, only 20 papers endorsed Donald Trump's candidacy. Hillary Clinton received 243 endorsements from daily newspapers. Just six weekly papers endorsed Trump’s first run, while Clinton received support from 148. However, the endorsements had no measurable effect on the outcome. Clinton, who lost the election in the Electoral College, had 2.9 million more votes nationwide than her opponent, a margin of 2.1% of total votes cast.
"In 2016, nearly every newspaper in America endorsed Hillary Clinton. Obviously, the endorsements of Clinton did not lead to her victory, but it was a reflection of a widespread belief that Trump was unfit for office," David Mindich told Temple Now. Mindich is a professor of journalism at Temple’s Klein College of Media and Communication.
Last week, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, two of America’s most prominent newspapers, broke with the longstanding tradition of endorsing a presidential candidate. The owners of both newspapers forbade their editorial staffs from selecting and endorsing the candidate they deemed best suited to lead the United States.
Newspaper endorsements of political candidates date back to before the 1830s. Newspapers were once partisan tools owned or funded by politicians themselves to disseminate political views and give endorsements. That changed with the rise of the independent press.
"After the commercial press in the United States was born in the 1830s, newspapers started to become independent. The leading newspaper of the so-called penny press era was the New York Herald, run by an editor named James Gordon Bennett," Mindich said. "From the inception of his paper to the American Civil War, Bennett endorsed candidates from both major parties. Endorsements became a regular feature of independent American newspapers."
Melita Garza, associate professor and director of graduate studies in journalism at the University of Illinois, said, "There is little empirical evidence that these presidential endorsements swayed readers to vote one way or another."
There is speculation that C-suite executives feared backlash and subscription cancellations from readers angered by a particular endorsement. Garza notes that journalists on the ground are ultimately the ones who suffer.
"The only people hurt by the cancellation were the journalists, who probably will face another round of layoffs," she said.
However, another likely reason for the abstinence from endorsements is the increasingly hostile climate created by conservative politicians and their social media agents. It is rare, if not unheard of, for liberal politicians to threaten media outlets or employees. Meanwhile, Trump has made numerous threats aimed at journalists and publishers. The fear of retaliation if he takes office runs deep not only among the billionaire owners of America’s largest news organizations but also among independent community publications that challenge or criticize him.
In 2022, at a Texas rally, Trump said he would jail reporters and “marry them to a prisoner” if they did not reveal confidential sources for stories he didn’t approve—a clear violation of the First Amendment. He repeated this stance weeks later at a rally in Ohio.
While newsrooms and editorial boards are often operated as separate departments or even entities within a newspaper, readers may not understand the distinction between an editorial and a news article. News articles state facts, answering the questions of who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how. The purpose is to provide a clear, accurate account of an event as observed by the reporter or witnesses. Editorials (and editorial columns) express opinions and viewpoints—right or wrong—by the publication’s editorial board. The objective is to present a perspective or stance and persuade readers toward that stance. Commentaries have the same purpose but are written by individuals not employed by the paper. All that said, the editorial staff at The Sentinel agrees that the best candidate to lead the United States into the future would be one not leading a party that threatens the bodily autonomy of women, the freedom of the press, and economic recovery now in full effect. However, we won’t be endorsing either candidate because, as they say, we aren’t the marrying type.Donald Trump: "The reporter goes to jail, and when the reporter learns that he's going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner..." pic.twitter.com/wvK7Ilrhn9
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 8, 2022
