Thursday, August 9th, 2007...7:20 am
Is This A Pattern of Some Sort?
A friend of mine (yeah, I actually have them) was talking to me about the Star’s unwillingness to endorse in primaries. Believe it or not, one of the reasons that some Star employees have given for not doing so is they don’t want to be “partisan.” No explanation of how endorsing in general elections would be any less partisan.
Anyway, this friend pointed me to an article about the Missoula Independent. The paper became part of the Lee Enterprises confederation, the same folks that recently picked up the Star, back in 2005. The Independent has taken to not running editorials at all. Instead, they will solicit guest opinions. This may be a way to save money (they didn’t have to replace their recently departed opinion editor), but, it could also be a way for the paper not to take responsibility for its opinion page. Controversial opinion piece gets published, hey, it wasn’t us. It’s a pretty convienient way to hide.
(By the way, the opinion editor’s position in the editorial board was taken up by someone in accounting. Draw your own conclusions here.)
Is what is going on with the Star’s reluctance to do endorsements another symptom of the same thing? Is there some sort of “don’t engage in controversy” directive from Lee?
I don’t always like the Star’s opinion pieces. But at least I can read the opinions and know what the feelings of a major community instituion are, and I know that they are willing to stand behind those opinions. This has traditionally been a responsibility that daily newspapers have willingly taken up. Hopefully, what is going on with the Independent and our local primary endorsements isn’t an indication of what we may see in the future from the Star.
NB - Don’t even get me started on the sophmoric Thorns & Flowers pieces. Such tripe is common in suburban weeklies, but is unworthy of a daily serving a community of over a million people.
5 Comments
August 9th, 2007 at 8:22 am
As the longtime editorial writer at the paper in question, I read the Missoula Independent’s piece with great interest. I’m not sure what to make of the direction the paper has chosen to take. But I can’t be sure it’s the wrong direction.
Here’s a letter to the editor from me in today’s Missoula Independent:
Opinions overrated
Editorial writers gleefully liken themselves to the men who ride onto the field after the battle to shoot the wounded. As such, I’m not altogether certain how essential practitioners of my former profession really are (see “News without a view,” Aug. 2, 2007).
The Missoulian is defying convention by experimenting with its Opinion page, but critics who complain about the lack of editorials representing the paper’s editorial board don’t get it quite right.
A newspaper’s editorials are merely a means to an end. With its editorials, a newspaper can engage its readers, offer leadership and promote the kind of discussion so essential to democracy. Thankfully, publishing its editorials isn’t the only way a newspaper can do this.
For proof, look no further than the paper you’re holding in your hands.
The Missoula Independent has never had an editorial page editor, never offered staff-written editorials and, as a matter of fact, doesn’t even have an editorial page. Yet the Indy is an excellent paper that serves me and western Montana well. I read it every week.
I never considered having a fat, balding guy in the corner furiously pounding out polemics to be the standard of journalistic excellence, even when I was that guy. Is the newspaper involved in its community and does it understand its readers? Does it inform and empower people? Does the newspaper provide effective community leadership?
Those are better—and much higher—standards to meet. I happen to know those are among the standards my old colleagues set for themselves.
Steve Woodruff
Missoula
August 9th, 2007 at 9:07 am
In some ways, a policy of printing a wide array of guest opinions would be a welcome change from the often-vapid, frequently gutless, editorials that they currently print. If they adopt that policy I only hope they open the pages wide. Knowing the “South Park Nannies,” however, they’ll refuse to endorse anything that might be controversial.
I’m no fan of Steve Auslander, the emotional cripple who began the Star’s long, ugly slide past mediocrity and into third-rate newspaper status. But when he was editorial page editor he was willing, even eager, to get people’s blood boiling in the morning. Of course he then became executive editor and his private parts shriveled up and withered away, along with the few remnants of sanity he possessed.
But now, with the exception of an occasional outburst by Sam Negri, the Star’s editorials are vapid, pointless and useless.
Their refusal to endorse in primaries makes no sense whatsoever.
Study after study shows that newspaper endorsements matter - but only in low-visibility races, such as the Legislature, Justice of the Peace and sometimes the City Council.
No one cares who the Star endorses for President, for Governor, for the U.S. Senate or Congress. But they do look to their Legislative endorsements. The Harry Blue Dog Heeler Taxi driver types will not vote for anyone who gets the Star’s endorsement, but some people who don’t know much about the low-visibility candidates will follow the papers suggestions.
Thanks, Tedski. I’m going to get another cup of coffee now that my blood is flowing freely.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
I’m not sure who the ‘independent’ is, but when I lived in Missoula the daily newspaper was the Missoulian.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Never mind. I stand corrected. I just checked the ‘opinions’ page of the Missoulian, and it does appear that they are the ones doing this.
I still don’t recognize the name, ‘Missoula Independent’ however. Then again, I moved away in 1988.
The ‘Chapel of Dove,’ (the most amazing place to see a movie): closed in 2002. Goldsmith’s homemade ice cream– still open (and if you can sell ice cream in Montana in January, then you know it’s gotta be dang good ice cream, and Goldsmith’s is.) Duckboy cards– are now even available here in Arizona. But I still have a few of the originals, and I used to know the guy who is holding the fishtail in their ‘catch and release fishing’ postcard.
August 11th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Oh, Oh… I see a thorn in your future.
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