Do Endorsement Rings Anymore?

[PatSeg]

Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times to CBS news in response to his newspaper's endorsement of Joe Biden:

If you can sit at a bar and say I’m for Clinton or Obama or Biden,” said Cullen, “why shouldn’t the newspaper provoke a discussion by saying ‘I’m for Biden.’

“Not to sound highfalutin, but we get access to candidates. We have a responsibility to pass along that information in a way you can’t convey in 15 column inches covering a stump speech.

“The editorial isn’t about ‘dictating.’ We don’t think we’re going to change anybody’s mind, but there’s a lot of fench-sitters, who are wondering whether Clinton is inevitable. I wrote the editorial to let people know that this issue is far from settled in Iowa.”

I then asked Cullen about the media angle – what importance does one newspaper make in a world of cable/broadcast/blog competition?

“We endorsed Dick Gephardt last time, and that didn’t work out. We backed the dark horse for governor and it didn’t make a dent. Our endorsements don’t really matter. But on the presidential front, things are really changing.

“When Dean was running, there were only a few political blogs out there. But now there’s more than you can count. We endorse Biden on Saturday morning and we get a call from Tom Vilsack that night asking us why we decided to do that.

“There’s no way that the New York Times or CBS News would have known about Storm Lake 10 years ago, but now, because of the Internet, we’re not a tiny little newspaper on that day. On that day, we are as relevant as the Washington Post. This grassfire starts on the Internet, and it’s crazy that I’m even talking to you.”


snip



<New media has changed the way politics is run. They’ve added a new variable to the political equation. The fact that a paper serving a town of about 10,000 people can step into the national debate is a prime example of the democratization of information.

Or, as Storm Lake Times editor Art Cullen said “I think it’s nice if a fellow in the sticks can provide a counterbalance to Chris Matthews.”>

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/10/23/publiceye/entry3397528.shtml