Sunday Opinion: Get to the polls, scalliwags!
We often use the In Box to trumpet the uncontested superiority of newspapers when it comes to doing the tough, detail-oriented work of supporting democracy.
That’s been on display the last month in spades, as regional papers have laid out exhaustive information about the candidates and the issues. It’s a level of public service that no one else in the media — new or old — is approaching.
In the Glens Falls Post Star, editor Ken Tingley pivots from that hard work to scold potential voters who don’t turn out to cast their ballots, especially in sparsely attended local elections like the one looming on Tuesday.
I’m annually disgusted when I see 50 percent or less of the eligible voters turning out to vote. They have a litany of excuses:
* “I don’t know who the candidates are and what they stand for.” * “My vote won’t make a difference.” * “I don’t know who to believe.”
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise echoes that theme, urging voters to get to the polls:
So what if there aren’t any national or state races this year? You still have to vote, if you’re eligible. It’s your duty – a critically important one. We are free because we can assert our choice over our leaders, locally and beyond. To not vote is to treat one’s freedom as flimsy and worthless, and that’s a shame.
The Watertown Daily Times, meanwhile, used its editorial page this weekend to suggest that this vote really does matter, endorsing the challenger in the mayor’s race and chastising incumbent Jeff Graham.
Many times Mr. Graham forgets he is a mayor when he describes himself as a blogger who is bringing transparency to city government. Mr. Graham has embarrassed the city with his flights of political infancy. He endorsed a hooker as a candidate for New York governor. He wanted Howard Stern to come to Watertown with his talk show. Bringing that sort of notoriety for the city certainly is not in the job description for a mayor.
On a different note, the Plattsburgh Press Republican notes that the Essex County operated fish hatchery is once again on the chopping block because of deep deficits. The hatchery, like the Horace Nye nursing home, might be privatized.
The Fish Hatchery in Crown Point costs about $288,000 annually and stocks 50,000 fish a year. That works out to about $5.75 per trout, and county officials want to know if they can buy fish cheaper.
So there it is. Opinion pages dominated by the upcoming election. What’s your mood? Heading for polls Tuesday?
Tags: politics
“That’s been on display the last month in spades, as regional papers have laid out exhaustive information about the candidates and the issues.”
I’ve had just the opposite feeling. I haven’t been able to find much information about the elections around me.
Maybe I’m just not looking in the right spots – can you provide links to this exhaustive information?
Use the Keene supervisor race as an example. I’ve been unable to find anything that would allow me to understand the differences between the two men running for that position.
I’ve found lots of articles that mention that there is a race, I’ve found one or two that include generic quotes from both candidates – but nothing of real substance. Nothing that would allow me to distinguish between them or know what one offers over the other.
The ADE has run a couple of good articles profiling the candidates in Keene, this one focusing on board seats
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/527545/Five-vie-for-two-Keene-board-seats.html
And this one focusing on the Supervisor races
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/527544/Supervisor-contest-in-Irene-battered-Keene.html
Granted, these aren’t NYTimes style investivative campaign pieces — but then, this is Keene.
Anyone reading these articles will come away with a solid sense for the candidates, and some of their ideas.
That’s certainly far better than anyone else in the media provided, right?
And Keene is just one tiny town. Newspapers have offered this information for literally dozens of communities just here in the North Country.
–Brian, NCPR
Maybe if the Post Star did a better job of paying attention to the work being done in elected offices and how that affects the voters throughout the year more people would feel invested in the process.
I understand that there are financial considerations that the paper must deal with but then maybe if reporters spent slightly more time understanding issues and explaining those issues clearly, rather than just running quotes without any sort of fact checking, more people would read the paper.
Or maybe fewer would…
“these aren’t NYTimes style investivative campaign pieces”
I agree. But your original claim was that “regional papers have laid out exhaustive information about the candidates and the issues.”
Maybe we have different ideas about what constitutes exhaustive information.
Yes, being “far better than anyone else in the media” is great, but that by default does not make it complete.. or even adequate.
For example, the article you linked to about the Keene supervisor election is easily the best one I’ve found, and it provides very little of substance that would allow me to make an informed decision – not sure what you are reading there that gives you a solid sense of the candidates. Lots of generic talk about planning, funding, and taxes. Almost nothing that helps to explain what one person would do differently than the other.
If I were to vote in this election with the information I’ve gleaned from available news sources it would amount to a coin toss.
All too often it seems like Im vote against the candidate I dont want to win rather than voting for someone i want to see win. I suspect many other voters feel the same way and that’s a reason turnout is low.
Dave –
I think you’re being unfair. The Keene election doesn’t happen to turn on any major issues. So the newspaper provided what information is available — and did so about a very small town.
(Exhaustive can mean a lot of things — and one of the things newspapers try to do is hit every election, even the small and uncontroversial ones…)
By contrast, when the ADE found a more controversial race (say the Franklin highway supervisor contest) they worked harder to fill in more blanks, making it clear that there were serious ethical and professional considerations at play.
Brian, NCPR
Does Ken Tingley do anything other than scold? But the always pompous editor conveniently omits one far more legitimate excuse for people not bothering to vote: lack of contested races.
I’m going to be voting… but I’ll be spending 20 minutes of my day casting a vote for exactly one contested office (county treasurer), a race for what’s basically a merely technocratic office on which I have no strong feelings about either uncompelling candidate.
Brian – MOFYC
Here’s a piece of information about the Warren County treasurer race (if that is what you are referring to) that probably wasn’t alluded to in the Post Star: the Republicans on the Board of Supervisors have in the past tried to make the Treasurer position an appointment rather than an elected position. The former treasurer, a Democrat, resisted. If the position fell to a Republican would the treasurer accede to the wishes of the B of S thereby removing a level of oversight from the taxpayers?
Hard tellin’ not knowin’.
And about Ken, it is good to remember that he spends a lot of time thinking about sports. If only politics involved a ball of some shape the PS would take more interest in it.
Knuckle: well that’s reflected in Ken’s mentality toward politics, which is a reductive “you’re either with us or against us” that rejects any nuance.
I am aware of the efforts to make the treasurer an appointed position. However, I don’t think the party affiliation of the treasurer will make any difference in that regard. I believe it needs a referendum and if not, I’m certain the treasurer would have a veto over such a move anyways.
Why do news outlets feel the need to encourage voters to go to the polls? This seems outside the purview of journalism? If you want to really be unbiased this isn’t a journalist’s job.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone, who can, should vote but since when is this something that a journalist is supposed to promote?
This is like trying to write their own story. Wow, look at the turn out at the polls!!
God forbid they start to promote other activities that we DON’T like.
No major issues? No controversy?
Keene just experienced a natural disaster of proportions that no one had ever seen around here before… and it is currently in the process of trying to recover from it.
And there has been plenty of controversy surrounding how the town has handled the storm’s aftermath – some of that controversy you covered right here on this blog.
Sure, it doesn’t reach the tabloid level that the Franklin County election does – but is that really what it takes to be worthy of more in depth coverage? Personal threats and drama?
Anyway, my intention wasn’t to signal out ADE… I just meant to question your assertion that we’ve gotten exhaustive election coverage. In most of these races, I think your average voter would struggle to articulate what one candidate would do differently from the other. Isn’t that the bare minimum we need to know in order to cast an informed vote?
Let’s face it, there are just too many elections in the NCPR coverage area, or any of the larger local newspaper coverage areas for any news organization to do justice to. At best they can give every candidate in every election a short essay of introduction. And then many of those candidates don’t bother to send the essay in.
But it is ridiculous for an editor to berate the voters for a lack of knowledge.
I try very hard to stay abreast of local issues but there are people running for town board in my town who I have never heard of.
It is ridiculous but what do you expect of him.
Like most major media (who of course claim to not make news, just report it, the Post-Star has a black list against smaller party candidates. In 2005, there were five candidates running for mayor of Glens Falls. The PS only gave coverage to three of them: the Republican, the Republican running as a Democrat and the Republican running as a Conservative. When they did an article on the candidates’ positions about, say, police dispatching, would it really have been that hard to contact the Green and the independent to get their opinion to include in the article? Of course not. This bias against such candidates is even more damaging around here since in many races, they are the only opposition to the Republican candidate.
We did have a “Meet the Candidates” night in Indian Lake last week at the Indian Lake Theater.
But local government is a bit different from the state and federal governments in that it is easy, if you want to be so bothered, to familiarize yourself with who is who by attending a few town board and school board meetings.
Many people, rightly or wrongly, do feel their choice is between tweedlie-dee and twedle-dum, and so don’t vote. Many don’t vote for someone running unopposed because it only encourages them to think everyone loves them. When you add these factors in, it shouldn’t be surprising many don’t bother to vote.
The real kicker comes when you vote for someone and then find out after they are elected that they may say one thing to get elected and then act in an opposite manner after they are elected.
To wit, the Post-Star printed a summary of all its endorsements today. I believe they only endorsed 6 candidates (plus the Crandall Library budget, though not the local Supreme Court justice race). That’s only 6 offices for their entire readership area! Only 1 of these 6 was an office I could vote on. To make matters worse, BOE changed the polling places without (to my knowledge) letting me know, so I wasted time going to the old polling place. So with two round trips and waiting in line, I will probably spend half an hour to cast a vote on a single (semi-meaningful) office. I will do this but I can understand why others don’t think it’s worth the hassle.