Has the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Become Irrelevant?
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HAS THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL BECOME IRRELEVANT? M. SCOTT NIEDERJOHN he Milwaukee ment success rate Journal Sentinel was determined by Thas a long histo- taking a look at the ry of both informing paper’s candidate and influencing the selection versus the people of Milwaukee actual election and Wisconsin. It is, results. Vote totals without a doubt, and election winners Wisconsin’s largest for the Milwaukee and most influential County races were newspaper. But does determined from the it have the same influ- “blue book” of elec- ence it had in the past? tion results for each Does it continue to year compiled by the dominate public poli- Milwaukee County cy debates or has its Board of Election influence diminished Commissioners. All in step with its state and federal declines in circula- government races tion.? Has the editorial were analyzed using board staff remained true to its independent election data available on the state of 3 roots, or is deference given to one political Wisconsin Elections Board web page. It party over the other? In order to shed light on should be noted that this study only analyzes these considerable issues, the paper’s political the writing and endorsements of the editorial endorsement records are examined, including board and not the Journal Sentinel news staff. It a close look at the Milwaukee County recall is assumed that these are two distinct groups elections of 2002. with the opinions and endorsements provided on the editorial page representing those of the Data and Method eleven-member staff and not necessarily the Political endorsements made by the newsroom, entire paper, or Journal eleven-member Milwaukee Journal Sentinel edi- Communications. torial board staff were obtained from 1998 to Politically Independent? the present.1 General election endorsements are considered in the quantitative analysis. The The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial races analyzed include all state-wide races, staff verbalizes their mission and policy state and federal offices in which citizens of through a document entitled, “Where we stand Milwaukee County participate, and local 2 M. Scott Niederjohn is a fellow of the Wisconsin Policy Milwaukee County elections. The endorse- Research Institute. Wisconsin Interest 19 at the Journal Sentinel.”4 The first tenet submit- The empirical evidence does not bear this ted in this document is centered upon their out, however. In fact, from 1998 to the present, independence in the spirit of the Journal nearly 76% of the Journal Sentinel endorse- founder Lucius Nieman. The actual statement ments have gone to Democrats. In reality, this reads as follows: “We are independent, ratio is tilted further to the left considering that beholden to no special interest or political one of their Republican endorsements came in party. The roots of this pledge extend far back a race where no Democratic candidate ran,5 into Milwaukee’s history.” Subsequent parts of and the majority of other Republican endorse- this document lend details and specifics to this ments were made in conservative districts in proclamation. A sampling of the way the edi- which the non-Republican had little or no torial board describes their philosophy include chance of winning the seat. To further this the following statements: point, one must consider that the average mar- gin of victory for Journal Sentinel endorsed • We are conservative on fiscal issues. Republican candidates is nearly 33%6 , and not • We believe in the American free enterprise one of these endorsed candidates lost their system and minimal government interfer- race. Table 1 shows the percentage of Journal ence. Sentinel endorsements by political party and year. These data show that not only does this • We believe that a just society must have paper primarily endorse Democrats, but the compassion for the unfortunate. percentage is progressively increasing. In 1998, • We believe diversity unites us all. 75% of the partisan races studied yielded Democratic endorsements. In 2000 and 2002 • We believe in a strong national defense this percentage rose to 77%. This year, the few At initial glance, these statements afford partisan races that have been conducted have credibility to the paper’s stated primary mis- all elicited Democratic endorsements. The sion of independence. Aspects of both conserv- statement that this paper’s editorial board is ative and liberal political philosophies are independent and not beholden to a particular prevalent in these sentiments. They also party appears to differ from the empirical evi- appear to be in line with the typical moderate dence. The data suggests that the paper exerts Milwaukee-area voter and newspaper sub- their influence in favor of Democratic candi- scriber. The paper professes to be conservative dates at a greater than three-to-one ratio. on fiscal issues, clearly a mantra of Fiscally Conservative? Republicans. They temper this with a declara- tion to fight for the less fortunate, a traditional- Another section of the Milwaukee Journal ly Democratic stance. The views on national Sentinel editorial policy states, “We are conser- defense and diversity also illustrate this vative on fiscal issues.” They expound upon dichotomy. With these assertions in mind, it this facet of their code by stating, “We believe would be that the expected that power to tax TABLE 1MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL POLITICAL the paper’s 7 must be vig- ENDORSEMENTS BY PARTY AFFILIATION endorsements ilantly would reflect Year % Democrat Endorse % Republican Endorse checked. The this indepen- 1998 75% 25% government dence and be that governs split relatively 2000 77% 23% best is frugal evenly 2002 77% 23% and levies between the taxes reluc- 2003 100% 0% political par- tantly.” The ties. actions of the board, 20 Winter 2004 once again, suggest some deviation between since 1998. These results are used to measure the stated mission of the Journal Sentinel editor- the accuracy of the newspaper’s endorsements. ial page and their actual record. It should be noted that the role of the editorial board at the Journal Sentinel, or any other credi- The data presented in the previous section ble newspaper, is not to simply endorse the raises the first indication that fiscal conser- winner of elections. Newspaper editorial staffs vatism may no longer be at the heart of the are obviously not in the business of forecasting editorial staff’s beliefs. While some Democrats election results, but the real goal is to deliver are undoubtedly money-wise, and some opinions in an effort to influence and guide Republicans free-spending, it seems that the readers on their selection of future government endorsements would be more evenly divided leaders. The Journal Sentinel does this based on between parties if fiscal conservatism was their core beliefs as documented in the afore- truly an overriding concern. mentioned “Where we stand at the Journal A reasonable place to continue the discus- Sentinel” manuscript. Quoting from this docu- sion of fiscal conservatism is via a study of ment, “In passing our opinions on to our read- spending referenda. Since ers, we are carrying out a 1998, the Milwaukee historic mission first Journal Sentinel editorial assumed by the founders board has taken a position of the earliest newspapers on eight school district in our original thirteen spending proposals that colonies, and today recog- have shown up on general To be truly relevant, the nized as a primary func- election ballots. Each of candidates endorsed by tion of a free press.” these referenda sought With this said, the approval from voters to a major newspaper must primary purpose of con- exceed state mandated veying these endorse- revenue caps in K12 edu- have some degree of ments is to influence elec- cation for new construc- tions and, therefore, pub- tion, renovation or a success. lic policy. To be truly rele- litany of other purposes.8 vant, the candidates Likely some of these endorsed by a major requests were warranted, newspaper must have while others may have some degree of success. been excessive. It would Given that the Journal Sentinel is the only be expected that the Journal Sentinel editorial major newspaper in Milwaukee, and the board, with the resources to determine which largest paper in the largest city in Wisconsin, it fall into each category, would make appropri- would be expected that their endorsements ate advisements for their readers.9 In the end, would carry much potency. This hypothesis is however; this board chose to recommend every proven to be correct in the partisan elections single spending measure, while voters struck studied in this paper. Table 2 shows the per- down five of the eight spending referenda. centage of partisan Journal Sentinel endorse- Again, an obvious discrepancy appears ments that actually won their elections for between the assertions of the editorial board 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003.10 Moreover, in 1998 and the opinions of Milwaukee-area voters. and 2000 all of the candidates endorsed by the Endorsement Accuracy newspaper in partisan elections won their races. This percentage dipped to 92% in 2002, Just how much weight does an endorse- and plummeted further to 50% for the few par- ment by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial tisan elections held in 2003. While the winning board carry today? To answer this question, percentage of candidates endorsed by the we first turn to the results of partisan elections Wisconsin Interest 21 paper has decreased over time, it continues to once non-partisan elections are introduced a be imposing. To truly understand the impact very different picture is painted. of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in local poli- As a starting point for analyzing the influ- tics, one must explore its influence in local ence the Journal Sentinel has had in non-parti- non-partisan contests. san Milwaukee County races, we begin with a dissection of election results for 2000.