Why do political candidates today meet with the newspaper editorial board?

My Aug 1, 2013 comment posted at Toledo Talk in response to Toledo mayoral candidates being interviewed by the Toledo Blade editorial board.

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The candidate who refuses to kneel at the throne of the Blade editorial board is the best candidate because such a candidate would know that "secret" meetings and relationships with the media are wrong, and such meetings are a throwback to a dinosaur era of information.

Since it's a digital information world, the interviews should be conducted publicly over a Web-based content management system or social media. Local media outlets could manage their own Web forums where they could interview candidates for everyone else to read or watch.

Or ask the questions over Twitter, and the candidates can respond via Twitter with links back to the candidates' blog postings that contain the answers. The candidates can own their answers.

We can read the full text of what the candidates said to the editorial board. Open and damn simple, which is exactly why the process is not done that way. It's harder for the media to distort reality when a person owns their answers to an interview.

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Additionally, it's interesting to read the opinionated and slanted Blade headlines about the interviews with the mayoral candidates.

For some reason, the Blade has a major dislike for Anita Lopez.

• Jul 29, 2013 - ... And a good cop shall lead them ... (about Michael Collins) - by associate editor Keith Burris
• Jul 30, 2013 - Candidate seeks return to system of weak mayor (about Alan Cox) - by politics writer Tom Troy
• Jul 31, 2013 - Lopez: Is force of will what we need? - by associate editor Keith Burris

Whoever created the headlines obviously gave Collins a more positive and favorable headline compared to the headline for Lopez, which is negative in tone.

An obvious negative opinion exists in the Blade headline for Alan Cox. The Troy article failed to mention that the Toledo Blade was a driving force 20-plus years ago to get Toledo government to switch from the city manager type of mayor to the current strong mayor form of government.¹ Hence the reason for the Blade headline saying "weak mayor" instead of city manager.

The newspaper is a cartoon hack. It's funny because we laugh at them.

¹ June 2007 Toledo Talk thread that referenced a June 2007 Toledo Blade editorial by Tom Walton who about the Toledo Blade:

Disagree with me if you like, but if our newspaper had been owned by the big boys would Toledoans' daily newspaper have pursued the Tiger Force story and won a Pulitzer Prize? Would Toledo have a strong-mayor form of government?

April 2003 comment by Toledo Talk user justread:

Not to mention the fact that our form of government is not actually "strong mayor," it's "strong publisher."

#web - #politics - #media - #moronism