What's the Point?

This article examines why editorial pages keep publishing newspaper endorsements of presidential candidates even though few voters are being swayed by these endorsements. The impact of endorsement on national or even regional elections--contests in which candidates are well-known among voters--is negligible. A Pew Center for the People & the Press study released in January 2004, which measured media influences on voters during the 2004 presidential campaign, concluded that newspaper endorsements are also less influential than four years ago, and they dissuade as many U.S. citizens as they persuade. But when the hometown newspaper is the primary source of preelection information for a particular race, its endorsement can and does sway voters--positively and negatively. In 2000, Editor & Publisher magazine found that 70 percent of papers and 96 percent with circulations of 200,000 or more that responded to a survey were likely to make a presidential endorsement. Not among this group are the nation's two largest newspapers--USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Neither endorses candidates of any kind. The founder of the first thinks endorsements are demeaning to readers, and the second views principles as more important than politicians.