Thursday, December 12, 2024
Before the presidential election, the Herald published an editorial explaining why the family-owned newspapers would not be endorsing political candidates.
If I had read the piece in a vacuum, I would agree with it entirely. It states, in part, “Our focus is not on swaying voters toward a particular candidate, but on delivering comprehensive and unbiased information about the issues that matter most to Long Islanders. We are not here to tell our readers how to vote for political candidates; rather, we are here to arm readers with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions at the ballot box.”
Sounds perfect. But we are living through an unprecedented and exceedingly imperfect time in our nation’s history. This year, not endorsing meant keeping silent when silence may have implied that both presidential candidates met minimal standards for serving in the nation’s highest office.
By any standard, that is not true of President-elect Donald Trump.
Media across our country have somehow made it seem as if a convicted felon with a rich history of lying and a refusal to take on the serious issues of governance is a reasonable choice. But in our president-elect, we have an aspiring autocrat, a morally bankrupt man with a vengeful heart.
He has already begun fulfilling his promise to dismantle the government by selecting big donors, MAGA loyalists and inexperienced toadies for his new cabinet. None of this is a surprise. He said he would do it, and he is. Whether they get confirmed is dependent on the ever-weakening backbone of Republican senators, who live and die, politically, at the whim of the man they follow.
We are in the beginning days of DJT’s revenge tour, fulfilling his promise to punish those who opposed him, challenged him and tried to bring him to justice. He wants people at the table whose loyalty is to him. Their expertise and leadership qualities seem incidental to the main qualification: unquestioning obeisance to the leader.
So the idea of not endorsing candidates, this extraordinary year in particular, does not sit well. The fallout from the coming Trump presidency could be a catastrophic shift toward an authoritarian government.
I understand the dilemmas. Do endorsements really affect voters’ choices? Historians, psychologists and journalists bat the question around, with no clear answer. Do endorsements alienate too many readers? In the world of newspapers, these issues loom much larger on the local level than with big newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, which also declined to endorse this year.
Local papers live in the community. They have responsibilities to their readers, to the truth and to the realities of just staying in business. With local newspapers closing every week across the country, conflicting interests must be reconciled, very carefully.
I started at the Nassau Herald more than 30 years ago, and for many years it did endorse candidates, from local officials to the presidency. Leatrice Spanierman, my mentor and colleague and the Heralds’ longtime executive editor, interviewed candidates every fall and wrote endorsements.
The candidates, including member of the U.S. House and Senate, came to her office; they knew the value of local newspapers’ endorsement. The Heralds had a voice, and used it as a means of informing readers.
The editorial in the Oct. 31-Nov. 6 issue, explaining why the Heralds were not offering endorsements, stated that “the one place where you might see opinions about local and national political candidates … is in columns in our editorial pages, like those written by Randi Kreiss and Peter King. These essays are distinguished from Herald news content by featuring photos of the authors, making it clear that they reflect the writers’ perspectives and not the views of the Herald.”
I understand the need to create distance. I like the distance, too. I don’t speak for the Heralds. No one high on the masthead has ever tried to influence what I write or don’t write. The paper stays above the fray by giving King and me platforms for different points of view.
I would be fine with any newspaper’s no-endorsement policy if this election had been like any other in America’s long history. But it was not. Nothing about this race was normal. The times demanded speaking up for democracy. For the immediate future and for as long as it can, the press must use its voice to call out the bad guys and amplify justice.
This Thanksgiving, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to share my views. Our free press never seemed so precious.
Copyright 2024 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.
