i think newspapers
have been endorsing candidates
for a number of elections now,
but i don't know
if they've "always" done it.

its very bizarre to me
that so many journalists
still cling to and claim
this whole objectivism thing.
newspapers have been openly activist
for at least a century, now.

Hey CF, finally, a couple of days ago the sides of your page started showing up green for me instead of white. But now I seem to have lost all your links and other sidebar stuff. What's up with that?

oh weird, its working now....

Supersize Me made you want to eat something? lol.
It made me want to go to the gym and like, never eat again.

jhimm - i feel like i'm living in an alternate universe. I could swear that as a child I was taught that journalists were out there to find out the truth and present it with facts. That we should actually admire journalists. Like woodward and bernstein. But I look at the journalistic landscape today and I feel like I must be making up fake memories.....

christina - and therein lies my weight problem. heh. I remember reading once that "you" should post pictures of what you want to look like by changing your lifestyle. I've always thought the opposite was true: I should post pictures of what I don't want to end up as....

that's what we've been taught, yes.
but it hasn't really been true
for a very long time.
and even if it were true of journalists,
its never been true
of the people who own the newspapers
(who are not journalists).

I heard a story on paper endorsements on NPR. Someone interviewed said that papers were originally a vehicle for politics. Papers are actually *less* partisan these days.
The newer, relatively objective journalism supposedly peaked around the Watergate era.
What jhimm said about publishers/owners was confirmed by the report as well. The modern examples showed it is commonly the publisher and editor(s) that come up with the endorsements--with the publisher overriding if they feel strongly about it.

jhimm & kevin - I got this from a friend of mine who was a journalist before he became an interrogator for the Army:

{dons old editorial/newshound hat}

The editorial board is the one which decides the opinion of the paper.

How this is composed varies, but not a huge amount from paper to paper.

On smaller papers it is the section editors, the Managing Editor (sort of the XO) and the Editor in Chief. There may also be some editors without
portfolio, who are only on the staff of the Ed Board to write and argue.

One of them will get assigned the editorial, with the opinion/conclusion to be reached. For some papers there is a dedicated satff (one or two writers) who do nothing but editorials, and they'll do it. They may not have a vote, but usually attend meetings, to get the general feel of the Ed Board on the subject.

At weeklies the editorial will usually be brought back to the board for approval/instructions for re-write (I recall an editorial I did which had
seven rewrites, mostly for small shades of meaning. I can still quote the lead from memory)

For dailys the opinion editor will look at it, and the EIC may have a veto.

Some papers have completly (or almost) editorial sections (e.g. the WSJ which often has editorials at odds with its news coverage).

In theory the editorials are the opinion of the staff, as a whole, which is why they have no byline.

In theory the owner/publisher could mandate an opinion, but that wouldn't be well recieved, because of that assumed voice. Far better, and more common, to see the publisher with a signed column, "From the publisher" which prevents the staff from being assumed to agree with his, personal, opinion.