Endorsements in the presidential race have gotten a lot of attention in the past few weeks. Or rather, the decisions by some well-known newspapers not to make endorsements. Both The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times announced they would not offer editorials supporting their choice of a candidate, and that spawned a lot of public debate about the roles and need for newspaper opinions in the political sphere. One MLive reader wrote and asked me this: “Why have you not made an endorsement for president? Is it not an obligation of you to do so?” The short answer is no, it is not a requirement or obligation. It was a tradition that was largely followed by most newspapers in the United States – in a bygone era. The last time MLive made an endorsement was in 2016, when we supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in her race against Republican Donald Trump. That election upended all kinds of norms about what we thought we knew about polls, public sentiment, candidate behavior and rhetoric. Things haven’t been the same since. In 2020, we decided not to endorse. I wrote a column then explaining why to readers. Frankly, I think it has not only held up (you can read it here), I am more convinced we are doing the right thing for our readers, our communities and the climate surrounding our politics. Outside of this weekly column, MLive does not routinely opine on day-to-day issues and controversies. We eliminated editorial boards years ago when we realized that the conversations had shifted from our newspaper pages, where opinion writers talked at readers, to social media pages where people went back and forth in real time. Here’s evidence of that shift: A few years back, we experimented with bringing letters to the editor back in The Grand Rapids Press. It petered out fairly quickly, due to lack of reader participation – even as social media commenting flourished. Before we launched MLive in 2012, our company operated its eight papers distinctly and autonomously. They all had editorial boards, and they all endorsed in presidential races. It may not surprise you that our papers in conservative communities endorsed Republican candidates most of the time, and in liberal communities, Democrats. The papers – in news and in opinion – reflected the culture of their towns. By 2016, we’d gelled behind the notion that MLive served the entire state, as well as local communities, and we spoke as one entity. That led to a great deal of internal discussion before we issued a presidential endorsement of Clinton. That election made us step back and look at what our mission is and where we provide the most value for our readers and communities. We made a conscious decision as journalists to go after facts, not tell readers how to vote. And that’s what we have done all year, writing about candidates and issues from the local level right up to the top of the ticket. That includes being at all 50 or so visits from the presidential candidates and their running mates, including trips to Michigan in the past week by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. We absolutely agree that a decision to pull the plug on an endorsement at the last minute – especially when it is a direct decision of a publisher – is a bad idea and a bad look. That's not what we did in this election cycle. We never planned to make an endorsement. And it's not because we lack courage. It's because we think the media landscape has changed in a way that makes our reporting and credibility far more important than an endorsement. Do your own homework. Vet the candidates through their own words (you can access the MLive Voter Guide by clicking here) and through all of our in-depth reporting, right on down to your local races. Make up your own mind. Then go vote. That’s what matters most. # # # | 