None of the Above

The Knoxville News decided to ditch endorsing presidential candidates:

Others recited the history of the News Sentinel's endorsements, which was a point I didn't cover in the column. The fact is, the News Sentinel has only twice made independent endorsements in presidential races: for McCain in 2008 and for Bush in 2004.

Before that, all of the newspapers in the E.W. Scripps group ran a single endorsement editorial. That position was reached through a formal, somewhat ritualized process. Every four years, the editors would meet and debate the endorsement. Then, voting in order of seniority, they would decide which candidate to endorse. The chief editorial writer of the Scripps Howard News Service would write the editorial, and all the papers would be bound to run it.

In 2004, the head of the newspaper division opened the process itself to debate, and the editors voted to discontinue it, allowing each newspaper to determine its own course. Personally, I hated to see the old system go. It had tradition and serious discourse behind it, and the resulting endorsement had some national heft. Subsequently, several Scripps papers have ended presidential endorsements, just as the News Sentinel has.