This is for Friday's paper. The candidate slideshow should be up on the Web site soon!
Editor’s Notes
Some unsolicited insight
As I write this, a man holds a sign at the corner of 11th Street and Tracy Boulevard to protest the Tracy Press congressional endorsement editorial. I’m OK with that. He reads the paper, which I like, and he's entitled to his soapbox.
One of the callers who told me about the sign-man asked why it is that the newspaper took a stand on the Pombo-McNerney race — or any other race.
Good question. Like most newspapers, we maintain a strict separation between the editorial pages and news operations. Reporters are not supposed to have bias — or, at least, show it — in the stories they write, and the same goes for those of us who edit news copy. Our obligation is to be fair and accurate in our presentation of the news.
A newspaper’s endorsement of a candidate or an issue isn’t some kind of weird ego trip, despite what some might say. It’s an expression of the opinion of the publisher and editorial board, which, at the Tracy Press, is made up of a handful of the newspaper’s family members and managers. Those opinions show up on the editorial pages, where readers are encouraged to share their viewpoints, too.
Publishing endorsements is a traditional role for newspapers. Back in the early 1900s, the Tracy Press ran front-page pitches for presidential hopefuls. Many newspapers proclaimed their political leanings in their nameplates. Most have altered their names over the years, such as the Arizona Republic, which used to be the Arizona Republican. But some, like the Santa Rosa Democrat, have kept their names.
That early political zeal died down, of course, and it wasn’t until 1990 that the Tracy Press started publishing endorsements for local candidates on its opinion pages — now called Voice.
We’ve always had a front-row seat on politics and a leadership role in the community, and at the very least, we figure our independent views can serve the purpose of provoking thought and discussion. At the same time, we try to get out as much information about the candidates and the issues as we can so readers have something on which to base their decisions at the ballot box.
Last Saturday, we ran eight pages of Q&As from the City Council and mayor candidates so that Our Town readers could get to know them better. Also, on two separate evenings last month, we held public forums in a school gymnasium with the candidates for Congress, state Assembly and City Council and mayor. The forums were televised and have been aired nearly every day on the city’s community-access cable Channel 26.
Just this week, we thought of something else we could do, and when the two mayoral candidates showed up for their face-to-face interviews with the editorial board, we asked them if they’d be willing to participate in an experiment for the sake of open democracy. We audiotaped the 1½-hour sessions, edited them to roughly 40 minutes each and put them on our Web site, with photos.
We also made CDs of the interviews — the uncut, audio portion — and have them available for readers in our front office. The price is a $1 (minimum) donation to the California First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech and open-government rights.
One of our objectives in opening the window to this process is to show you what we asked the candidates and what they answered. We hope you’ll take a look and a listen and let us know what you think.
Who knows? By the time the next election comes around, we’ll probably be webcasting. And the protesting sign-man will probably still come around.
Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, suggests that "Newspapers are not dead yet, but their hoped-for rebirth as Internet ventures requires a new strategy to create value in their journalism." Scheer proposes that newspapers agree to a 24-hour delay in release of their content, free, on the Web.
