Opinion is the cheapest and most plentiful commodity on the internet
Dear Reader,
Our mission at MLive is to spread light, not heat. To find fact and verify it, and then turn it into credible journalism you can use to make important decisions in your life.
That’s why we are devoting a great share of our resources to daily political coverage leading up the Nov. 3 election. It’s why we’re teaming with the League of Women voters to publish a fact-based guide to candidates and their stands on issues, in the candidates' own words.
And it’s also why MLive Media Group will not be making an endorsement in the presidential election.
There are a lot of time-honored traditions in journalism, and many still are vital: Getting multiple sides to a story, following ethical standards that guide our conduct and shape our work, and processes for verification and editing.
Political endorsements have not aged so well, in our view. Nor will they add anything of substance to our body of work leading up to the presidential election, or beyond.
The 2016 election showed how little a groundswell of historic unanimity among American newspapers for one candidate, Hillary Clinton, meant in the overall election process. In fact, it highlighted that our industry was missing a real story about changes in American society and culture that were happening right outside our doors.
If the traditional intent of newspaper election endorsements was to lead an informed and genteel dialectic around the relative strengths and weaknesses of candidates, that got obliterated in the 2016 election cycle.
Opinion is the cheapest and most plentiful commodity on the internet, and in 2016 the noxious firehose of shouting, disinformation and ridicule crowded out informed debate. If you skipped your family reunion because you didn’t want to hear your cousin’s political views, then do either of you really want to hear what we think?
Poll after poll is showing that voters are entrenched in their support for their parties and candidates; the needle has moved very little from 2016 to now, or from this spring until now, for that matter. Six million ballots already have been cast in the United States.
The battleground states are still the battleground states, the margins thin, and the percentage of undecided voters microscopic. The election is going to be decided by voter turnout, not by changing minds.
So MLive will keep its opinion to itself, thank you, and put our efforts into reporting on issues affecting your life at a state and local level. How you use that information to vote is up to you.
And when the voting is done, we’ll tell you what happened, and what it means. That’s not an opinion – that’s a fact.
You can study the races on your ballot in the MLive/League of Women Voters election guide at this link. A printed version of the guide will be in all of our newspapers this Sunday. (A note: The Sunday edition also has a special guide to Medicare plans, and carries a premium price at newsstands. There is no additional fee for home-delivery subscribers, and the online election guide is free.)
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🎧 To listen to this week's episode of Behind the Headlines podcast on why MLive will not be endorsing a candidate, click here. To hear all the stories behind the stories, click here and subscribe to our Behind the Headlines podcast.
Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at editor@mlive.com.
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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