I’m a little reluctant to post this for fear my former employer will adopt it. But do election endorsements and endorsement letters matter to you? If so, would you pay for them?
Do endorsement letters matter to you?
by Greg Reibman | May 7, 2012 | Newton | 5 comments
No. A newspaper doesn’t have to print every letter it receives. I think that any newspaper editor or publisher worth their salt should be able to distinguish between an original letter with original ideas versus a chain. assembly line, or “push” set of letters. Our Congressman sets the standard for this. I know for a fact that Barney Frank will read and personally respond to a well crafted, well thought through letter that reaches him through the U.S. Postal Service. But he doesn’t pay attention to mass emails, post card campaigns, or a letter signed by an individual who has obviously lifted it verbatim from some campaign’s talking points.
I hope Gail will find time to weigh in on this, since she has first hand experience navigating the very dicey waters of endorsement letters. The short version goes something like this: Rational people can act very irrationally around, well everything, when it comes to elections, especially letters. You might like to think editors should be able to exercise their discretion on this matter but they will be hounded by campaigns if you allow their competitor to have, not just more letters of support but more letters of support higher up on the letters page or closer to election day or with stronger headlines etc. And heaven forbid you run into a slighted candidate while out with your family on the weekend!
I think newspapers should do the best they can for free. Everytime there is a charge for something it takes away from one more thing that a candidate who has very little resources has to match with those who have lots of resources. Keeping it as it is gives everyone an even playing field, whether candidates take advantage of it or not. There should be guidelines, but no charge.
Come on Greg, here’s your opportunity to blaze a new trail and generate some income from Village 14. V14 could become THE one stop shopping center for local paid endorsements. We’ve got so many elected representatives in Newton, it’s a great place to be.
I’ll start working on the “boilerplate” endorsement.
Campaign letters to the editor were the bain of my existence during my tenure as editor of the Newton TAB. Or one of them, at least. My philosophy about letters to the editor — all letters, not just during election time — was that we should print them as long as they were not libelous, they met our length requirements and they were local in content.
Elections bring out insecurity in candidates — your editor knows this about you, folks! — and I swear that insecurity manifested itself on the opinion pages of the Newton TAB. I can’t tell you the number of phone calls and emails I got about so-and-so had three letters in today’s issue,two in last week’s and one in the week before, but I only have two when I know that five of my supporters sent them in. From the perspective of the candidate, they were valid questions to ask of me: After all, candidates spent a lot of time enlisting supporters to write letters.
From the perspective of the newspaper, it took an incredible amount of my time to try and balance the number and placement of letters. I won’t bore you with all the organizational challenges and decisions, but I will say that candidates have no idea what it takes to run all those letters, many of which the candidate or a designee wrote anyways. I usually had to ask for extra pages to be added to the paper, which does cost money. Nobody ever said no to me, but I always had Greg to back me up. It’ll be interesting to see how the next municipal election plays out without Greg. I would not be at all surprised if the TAB can no longer print all the letters it receives (assuming that Emily intends to retain that policy).