The role of editorials during election season
Publisher’s Note by Mary P Brooke, editor ~ WEST SHORE VOICE NEWS
September 14, 2018
As each election season rolls around – whether municipal/trustee, provincial or federal – up comes the question of whether as a news service we will ‘endorse’ one candidate or party.
The answer to that from West Shore Voice News is always the same. It is not the absolute right or even the expected role of a news service to endorse any one candidate or party for political office. Some newspapers do it, occasionally.
The role of media is to gather information for readers/electorate, organize it for public consumption (including fact-checking and historical lens), and present it within the framework of what are seen to be the issues of the day.
People will point out that in May 2013 this publication (then Sooke Voice News) published a full-page editorial about why then-MLA-candidate John Horgan was the right choice for voters in the Juan de Fuca riding. It was an editorial (an analytical discussion, backed up with facts and observations), not an endorsement. Media must remain observant and offer ideas deemed pertinent to the times.
Think of editorials as those essays you were asked to write in high school English class. You’re given a topic, you explore it, and offer some conclusions. In May 2013, the most suitable leader to watch out for the Sooke community’s expressed interests was Horgan, and we simply pointed that out.
Similarly, in the 2014 municipal election in Sooke, after almost seven years of attending council and committee meetings at the District of Sooke, this editor proffered up observations based on spending literally hundreds of hours in the media pit.
Observations were made about how things were handled at the council level over the years by both candidates in that race (Tait and Haldane); our news coverage spoke to what was seen firsthand. To the public who almost never attends those meetings, it was perhaps a different set of observations than what you see in campaign materials (why be surprised at that?). It’s the job of media to consistently observe long-term and give context to those observations for people to think about.
Now in this 2018 municipal election, same thing. We’ll bring you as much information as we can. Lots of it will sound familiar, but some of it will have been gleaned from our on-the-ground, on-the-phone, through-email interactions with political teams, and at public forums. That’s our job. The editorials, articles, news bits and insights are the deliverables to our readers.
How you vote is up to you. But hopefully you do that after considering the widest possible range of facts and analysis.
::: As first published on page 2 in the September 14, 2018 print/PDF edition of West Shore Voice News
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