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The Endorsement Game: Newspapers vs. Blogs

Newspaper endorsements have been a mainstay in politics for generations, but as the reach of influence of papers has waned, so has the power of their recommendations to voters.

Politicians still covet endorsements and subject themselves to grillings before editorial boards to win them because the written votes of approval make great fodder for press releases and campaign literature. But especially at the national level, media endorsements of candidates long ago lost their political punch. Honestly, do Joe Six-Pack and Jane Soccer-Mom even read them anymore?

The writing is tired, and the candidate picks are predictable. And because the endorsements are bestowed by anonymous editorial boards, as opposed to "branded" individuals, they hold little, if any, sway with voters.

In this revolutionary era of new media, however, blog endorsements can carry far more weight. Bloggers made now-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean a household name in 2004, and in the 2008 presidential race, they have had a similar albeit so far more limited "long tail" effect for Republican candidate Ron Paul. Dean screamed his way out of the running early and Paul is still in the also-ran category, but the fact that they have been noticed at all demonstrates the impact of positive blog publicity.

Blog endorsements matter because politically engaged "influentials" who shape opinions in their local communities read blogs. They also matter because leading bloggers, unlike editorial boards, are known entities. A presidential endorsement from Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos could change the dynamics of the Democratic race -- which is no doubt a factor in Moulitsas' decision to stay neutral thus far this year -- and state-based bloggers have even greater potential to swing electoral votes one way or the other.

These new media endorsements matter enough that smart campaigns track them, and now Micah Sifry of techPresident is trying to do the same on a broad scale.

"If you've decided on your presidential candidate, let us know," Sifry wrote last week. "You can start by just adding a comment with your name, blog URL, link to a post with your endorsement (if any), and if you feel like it, your city and state. We'll build a directory to make it easy to find out who is supporting whom, and we'll make it in such a way that it's easy to add additional names."

This subtle, ongoing shift in the endorsement game is further evidence that live pixels, not dead trees, are the future of both politics and journalism.

Posted by Danny | 09:28 AM

Comments

Don't forget You Tube - a kind of video blog. Today the most disscussed and the top rated video is of Ron Paul. Posted just 24 hours ago it has already had 170,000 views and has made a headlines in a newspaper in Australia. It is 8 minutes long and is a very inspiring message for America. See it at: http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=tr&t=t&c=0&l=

Brian Horsfield | 10.12.07 11:04 AM

I agree that a Kos endorsement could change the race, but probably not for the same reason you meant.

Jim Treacher | 10.18.07 03:59 PM

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