Political endorsements have always been at odds with the supposed objectivity of media organizations. 

Although most newspapers proclaim a strict separation between news decisions and editorial judgements — and many people in those organizations try their best to uphold that wall of separation — it beggars belief to say that there is no connection between the opinions of the editors on one page and the way news is presented on the next. Left-wing newspapers endorse Democrats, right-wing papers endorse Republicans. When that means backing an unqualified candidate, it diminishes the credibility of the entire organization.

Consider the Philadelphia Inquirer’s endorsement this week of Erin McClelland, the Democratic candidate for state treasurer. 

On its face, this is a dog-bites-man story. Stop the presses! A Democratic paper backs a Democrat! But if we look past the party labels, this endorsement looks far more dubious and even embarrassing. 

McClelland runs for office every couple years, without any serious backing of anyone in her party or any significant constituency in the state. She is what is known as a “perennial candidate,” a person who very much likes the idea of being on the ballot but has not given the voters any good reason why she should win. There are plenty of such candidates across the Commonwealth; if you’re willing to collect a few signatures, you can be one, too.

Typically, that’s as far as it goes, but in a low-turnout, down-ballot election for an office few people pay any attention to, a little-known candidate can sometimes hit the jackpot. And so it was this May when McClelland defeated state representative Ryan Bizzarro in a result SpotlightPA attributed to “location, reputation, demographics, and pure luck.” 

Since that time, as Salena Zito has reported here at Broad + Liberty, McClelland has shown that she can’t even manage her own campaign finances. But she’s qualified to manage ours? Even Governor Josh Shapiro, the state’s most prominent Democrat, declined to endorse McClelland. 

The Inky and other Democratic newspapers will likely soon endorse Malcolm Kenyatta, too — the Auditor General candidate who doesn’t even pay his own bills.

One excuse for McClelland’s endorsement is that her opponent, Republican incumbent Stacy Garrity, declined to meet with the editorial board. After the left-wing media has smeared her as an “insurrectionist” for the past four years, it’s not hard to understand why. Any Republican candidate would have to ask herself what the point is of coming to Philadelphia to kowtow to the editors of a newspaper who would never in a million years endorse her. If the city had a newspaper as far to the right as the Inquirer is to the left, Democrats would likely shun it just as much.

That’s unfortunate: our politics is better served when candidates and officeholders are open to speaking to voters and journalists of all persuasions, as Shapiro did in 2022 by going on FOX News to reach voters who might not otherwise hear his message.

By endorsing candidates — and especially by routinely endorsing candidates of the same party — editorial boards diminish their organizations’ appearance of neutrality and impartiality. It’s a disservice to the reader as well as to those reporters who are trying to do their jobs the right way.

Broad + Liberty is, like the Inquirer’s owners, a non-profit organization. As such, we do not endorse candidates for any office. But even if we were not prevented from doing so by the tax laws, we would still not endorse. Why? Because the public has lost enough trust in the media already. We publish opinion pieces, as the Inquirer and others do, but we also seek to report the news without bias. For impartiality to be believed, it must be seen. Endorsements show people the opposite.

Television and radio stations figured this out long ago — you don’t see CNN endorsing a candidate. Online media typically don’t, either. Only newspapers cling to the past and ask us to believe this increasingly unbelievable pretense.

In an era of diminishing trust in all institutions, legacy media like the Inquirer only further degrade themselves by openly aligning with one political party while masquerading as a vanguard of objectivity. It really would be comical, if it did not so clearly threaten the democratic values they claim to cherish.