The Sentinel will endorse candidates

A newspaper’s job is to use its pages to inform, educate, even entertain readers. That includes sharing opinions, though hopefully those opinions are more often educational than entertaining.

More specifically and relevant to this year’s upcoming elections, a newspaper’s traditional role in the community it serves includes offering its informed opinions about candidates.

The Sentinel this year will endorse candidates in most state and congressional races, maybe even some municipal races, which is a change from past years.

Those endorsements will be strictly limited to the opinions page and will absolutely not influence the paper’s news coverage.

Those endorsements will be based on facts and needs of the state and the community, not personalities or politics. When all of the candidates in a race would do the job well, the endorsement could be “all of the above.”

And, in fairness to all, the Sentinel will make space available on the opinions page for competing endorsements. That’s part of educating and informing — providing space for multiple viewpoints. The only rule is to keep it civil and respectful, no eye gouging, no smashing chairs over anyone’s heads like in TV wrestling, and no repeating false allegations such as President Joe Biden and his street gang masquerading as Santa’s elves stole the 2020 election out from under Rudolph’s red nose.

It takes a lot of work to study the candidates, to learn about the issues, and elections are too important for a newspaper not to share its knowledge and view of the ballot choices.

Telling readers which candidates the newspaper supports and why is intended to promote a more educated electorate who can make their own decisions based on their own values and priorities. No publisher expects readers to religiously follow a newspaper’s endorsements as a voting guide. Rather, newspapers hope that readers will at least consider the points raised before deciding on which candidates to support.

Disagree, grumble, crumple up the newspaper in a wad and toss it on the fire, or wrap it around a dead fish. Vote how you want, but cast your ballot knowing more than what a Facebook post tells you. If the Sentinel’s endorsements help, the paper has done its job.

— Wrangell Sentinel