Gary Crooks: To endorse or not to endorse?

This is candidate-filing week, with Friday being the final day. So the primary season for state and local elections is rapidly approaching. The Spokesman-Review will be contacting candidates for endorsement interviews.

So what does “endorsement” mean? Before Idaho Sen. Jim Risch’s April 6 television appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” I thought it was obvious. It’s a recommendation to the voters.

But in this bizarre election year, nothing is that simple.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Risch whether he had endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Risch replied, “You’ve never seen me use the word ‘endorse.’ Having said all that, my preference obviously is for Cruz at this point. It depends on what you mean by ‘endorse.’ Am I going to go door-to-door for him handing out literature? Probably not.”

The editorial board also does not ring doorbells for candidates, but we do endorse them. Which ones? The ones we prefer.

INTERVIEWS. Washington state has a top-two primary system, under which the first- and second-place finishers, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. So during the primary, the editorial board will only contact candidates in races that have at least three candidates.

We will interview candidates in two-person races after the primary. That’s also when we will take up ballot initiatives. We do not plan to re-interview candidates we talked to during the primaries unless something extraordinary occurs.

These interviews should not be confused with those conducted by reporters. Our process is separate from the newsroom’s.

BUTT OUT? The newspaper endorsement is a staple of election season, but like all traditions it is under increasing scrutiny. The nature of endorsements hasn’t changed, but the political landscape has.

“Who are you to tell me how to vote?” That’s not a new complaint, but it has gained momentum in this hyperpartisan era where the distinction between reliable information sources and the rest has been blurred. There is a reason candidates will return our calls but not those of Blogger Come Lately.

A 2014 Columbia Journalism article noted that dozens of newspapers have stopped issuing endorsements. I’m old enough to remember when local TV stations endorsed candidates and aired editorials, but they stopped for many of the reasons newspapers are stopping. Why deal with all the complaints and perceptions of bias from people who will not make the distinction between the editorial page and the rest of the newspaper?

To me, this is an argument to discontinue opinion journalism altogether. Why agitate readers with cartoons, letters, columnists and our own editorials? If endorsements damage our independence, as some have suggested, then why is it OK to publish our views the rest of the year?

Should we publish letter writers’ opinions on who to vote for but not ours?

The editorial board routinely weighs in on government and the actions of elected officials. But, for whatever reason, critics want us to clam up when it comes to selecting those leaders.

THE PROPOSITION. Do you think newspapers should endorse candidates? Should they weigh in on any issue?

Send me your opinion (as brief as possible), and please include a full name and hometown if you want it published. Contact information is at the end of the column.

Opinion Editor Gary Crooks can be reached at garyc@spokesman.com or (509) 459-5026. Follow him on Twitter @GaryCrooks.