Endorsement ‘irresponsible’
Last Sunday’s editorial page endorsement of President Bush has generated a significant amount of response from readers — much of it negative. A few specific questions are addressed below. It’s also worth pointing out that there is a distinct, ethical separation between what’s printed on the editorial pages by the opinion staff, and the election news that’s printed on the news pages by the news department.
Question: On Sunday you stated as fact and justification for your endorsement several issues, that though they are Bush’s taglines, were either previously disproven or just plain wrong at the start.
Forgive me, but to those of us who read the national news and compare it to the campaign rhetoric, the Spokesman endorsement just made the author sound ill-informed. It would have been better if you just said, “We take Bush.” Period. Or, “We take Bush: we believe in him personally, and we have joined him in throwing out all information we don’t like and repeating the stuff we do like often enough that we come to believe it.”
Nobody could have argued with that.
But what really worries me is that you — once again — not only failed to correct these misconceptions, but promoted them. The owners of the paper are entitled to their opinions, but they are not entitled to deliberately misinform the public. I’m sorry, but this seems like irresponsible journalism.
So here’s my question: No matter what the author personally believes, what made the paper think it could or should print a shopping list of misinformation to back it up? — Dale Forbes Wells, Spokane
Answer: It’s clear from the message that you disagree with the opinions expressed in our editorial. That’s fine. It happens every day. That’s what an opinion page is all about. In the end, though, the editorial speaks for itself, and readers are free to agree or disagree and to respond with their own points of view. I hope there will always be a variety of opinions around these issues. You don’t get harmony when everyone sings the same note. — Doug Floyd, editorial page editor
Why endorse at all?
Question: Why would the editorial writers or board of The Spokesman-Review endorse someone reluctantly, as they did with George Bush for president? In the same editorial, his failures in both international and domestic policy were outlined. Why not refuse to endorse either candidate if such reluctance prevails? — Jim Ramsey, Ponderay, Idaho
Answer: In rare cases, refraining from any endorsement is an option. However, we try to avoid it if we can. We put ourselves in the voters’ shoes, and the voters — collectively, at least — are going to have to make a choice. Sometimes, the choice is the lesser of two negatives. — Doug Floyd, editorial page editor
It’s actually advertising
Clarification: A reader of SpokesmanReview.com raised a “strong objection” to the presence of a link to the Republican National Committee Web site adjacent to a letter to the editor about Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. The reader wondered if the linking “policy” was somehow connected to the newspaper’s editorial page endorsement of President Bush.
Contrary to the reader’s perception, that link was not placed there intentionally and not even directly by the SR.com staff. It was an advertisement that was served automatically as a result of a contract with Google. That company has tens of thousands of “contextual ads” that are placed on a page automatically when a computer program recognizes certain key words or phrases on that page. So it’s not hard to imagine political ads showing up on a page that includes information about the presidential race.
That’s the risk we take in allowing ads to appear on Web pages that display letters to the editor. The printed newspaper doesn’t currently display any ads on pages that contain letters to the editor.
We will continue to monitor this issue and take action if necessary to maintain the sense of neutral display of commentary. — Ken Sands, managing editor of online and new media