Why endorse before you've seen the money?

Both the Daily News and the Inquirer have begun making their endorsements for this year's primary election - before, that is, candidates have disclosed basic campaign finance information.

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Why endorse before you've seen the money?

POSTED: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 10:35 AM
Filed Under: ElectionEar

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Both the Daily News and the Inquirer have begun making their endorsements for this year's primary election — before, that is, candidates have disclosed basic campaign finance information

Trying to figure out who's up to what is hard enough as it is: Candidates for city office only file campaign finance reports once before the primary — the last reporting cycle ended on Monday, but reports don't have to be submitted until Friday. That leaves reporters and the public just over a week to review a mountain of information potentially more revealing than any questionnaire or debate.

(The Inquirer, by the way, began making its endorsements even earlier, before its own reporters had had the opportunity to report on several races and before those candidates had had the opportunity to debate in public).  

This info is vital to understanding who the candidates are beholden to — and, perhaps, who they'll be inviting into their offices first if elected.

Yet both the Inquirer and Daily News have already made many of their endorsements — sending a mesage to their own reporters, it seems to me, that whatever muckraking, investigative, money-following journalism they might be ready to deploy in that tiny week doesn't matter. 

Worse, it sends a message to the public that newspapers — just like unions, PACs, and political kingmakers — are part of the inside game. 

Stay tuned, by the way, for City Paper's own endorsement information.

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Posted by Isaiah Thompson @ 10:35 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
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