Why We Don’t Endorse Every political season, just about this time – a week or so before election day – we at the Flyer get asked the same old question. Readers want to see our “list”; they want to know which candidates we’re endorsing in the upcoming races. For almost a decade now, our answer to that question has always been the same: The Flyer doesn’t endorse political candidates. Here are some of the reasons why. The tradition of newspaper endorsements dates back to the late 19th century, back to a time when most American cities had half a dozen (or more) daily newspapers. In a world with so many different print-media voices, the local reader could pick up and choose from a wide variety of editorial opinions. The lay of the land today is completely different, of course. Daily newspapers have dropped like flies over the past several decades, with the result that most American cities (ours included) have only one left. And even in those cities that have successful urban newsweeklies, there are rarely more than two or three publications altogether with broad enough circulation to qualify them as “mass market.” As one of just two such animals in this particular market, we at the Flyer are sensitive to anything that even remotely suggests a compromise of our editorial independence. In our opinion, political endorsements do just that. It’s one thing to endorse specific political policies; it’s quite another to hitch your wagon to a particular individual star. At the most basic level, this “bonding” between a collective institution like a newspaper and an individual politician creates an impression of unanimity that is, frankly, ridiculous. When it endorses a particular candidate, a newspaper is admitting to its readers that the political opinions of a narrow selection of its employees – an editorial board or whatever – are more valid and more worthy of expression than those of the rest of its workforce. We find this de facto elitism a tad distasteful – and our employees would certainly agree. Even more important, individual political endorsements can create in the community at large the appearance of a conflict of interest. And unfortunately the appearance of conflict can sometimes be as dangerous as the real thing. Memphis’ 1991 mayoral election provided a striking example of just how political endorsements can get in the way of effective news reporting. In that particular race, The Commercial Appeal made no bones about its preference: The newspaper endorsed Dick Hackett, the incumbent. Such endorsements are relatively harmless, perhaps, in 99 elections out of a hundred. But as we now know, 1991 was no “normal” election year. In fact, the mayor’s race – in which Hackett lost to Willie Herenton by a mere 142 votes – was the closest American big-city election since World War II. Not surprisingly, a storm of controversy surrounded this extraordinary result. Questions were raised about the voting process, about discrepancies between the voter lists and actual counts in certain wards and precincts. But these were questions with which The Commercial Appeal had to deal with one hand tied behind its back. Why? Because the entire community was aware of the CA’s ringing endorsement of the defeated incumbent. And rightly or wrongly, certain sections of the community stood ready to howl “Sour Grapes!” if and when the newspaper’s post-election analysis turned too aggressive. The 1991 election clearly demonstrated the murky water a publication can unwittingly wade into when it gets into the business of endorsing candidates. It’s water which we’d just as soon steer clear of. (This editorial first appeared in our July 28, 1994, issue.)