When I was a political reporter, I hated endorsement season.

Now, as a columnist, I still do.

While the editorial page was considering which candidates to endorse, I was hustling to get my interviews done before the endorsements were published. I knew from experience that campaigns and candidates get snarly after they’ve been passed over.

Once the endorsements appeared, I spent the next several days taking angry calls from the supporters on the other side, accusing me (and the paper) of unspeakable and often physically impossible acts.

Ahhhh, memories.

Newspaper bosses tell readers that the editorial page endorsements have nothing to do with the coverage in the news pages. I can confirm that. Not once have I been pressured to cant my coverage toward chosen candidates (or against the unchosen). Except when I was an editorial writer from 1993-95, I found out who the Tacoma News Tribune was endorsing when I read it in the paper or on the Web site.

But I wonder how we expect folks to believe that what happens on the editorial page is separate from what happens elsewhere in the paper. Doesn’t it test the credulity of readers to say that the stuff on B6 is completely detached from the stuff on B1?

Maybe I’m being selfish when I wish that papers would break from tradition and stop running unsigned campaign endorsements, at least in the highest profile races like president and governor.

Like all editorials, endorsements are the institutional opinion of the newspaper. Many editors passionately believe editorial pages serve an important function when their writers sit down with both candidates, hear them out and make a judgement on which would best serve the public.

Despite the long tradition, I think we should take a look at how, why and whether we do endorsements. I wonder whether they do more harm to our relationship with readers than they are worth.

So much has changed in newspaper publishing – and not just that many of our online readers never see a printed paper. These companies are rarely owned by local men and women. Publishers are appointed managers who have relatively short stays in any town. And two-newspaper towns are rare.

This isn’t to say that the opinion function of the press isn’t valid and vital. We did it before talk radio, blogs and cable news. Ed-page editors give more space to other people’s opinions than to their own.

But there is a difference between telling people what you think and telling them how they should vote.

I confess my argument becomes less compelling the lower down the ballot we go. In local races or judicial races where voters don’t have much information, having the benefit of any thoughtful discussion is important. It is in these races that ed-page interviews and endorsements have their most impact.

But anyone who feels they haven’t gotten enough information about the candidates for governor or president and needs the help of endorsements probably shouldn’t be voting anyway. There also is evidence that endorsements play only a small role in how voters decide.

I don’t know if partisan suspicion of newspapers and the rest of the MSM is more intense now than in the past. It has been pretty constant during my 28 years with newspapers and a wire service. I do know that the foot soldiers on both the right and the left are more conditioned and eager today to sniff out evidence of bias and unfairness in the coverage.

So why do we do something that provides one side or the other their a-ha moment? As in, “See, I knew they were Democrats, they just endorsed the Democrat.” Since papers usually endorse some from each party (but most often incumbents), both parties use them as evidence that they’re not getting a fair shake.

I expect to lose this debate. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth having.