In the weeks leading to the primary election in March, some candidates will receive more coverage in The San Diego Union-Tribune than others. There’s no question that attempts will be made to keep coverage evenhanded. However, evenhanded does not translate to equal.
That means that not all candidates will get the same amount of space in the newspaper. And to be fair to readers, they shouldn’t, said Union-Tribune politics editor Michael Smolens. The newspaper owes it to readers to allocate its limited space to the candidates who have a chance to win. They are the ones readers need to know the most about.
How much space each of the candidates will get in coming stories in the Union-Tribune depends on how their candidacy stacks up. Remember the historic October recall election in which 135 people paid for a spot on the ballot? It would have been impossible to give all the candidates equal space and it wasn’t necessary. While most of the space went to Gray Davis who was fighting to retain his governorship and to challengers Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cruz Bustamante, other candidates were not ignored. Some had full stories, and all 135 had their names in the newspaper at least once or twice before the election.
A story that appeared Wednesday about the coming San Diego mayoral election probably the mostly hotly contested in a host of local races said it appears it will be a repeat of the 2000 race that included then-Superior Court Judge Dick Murphy, Supervisor Ron Roberts and former banker Peter Q. Davis. The last paragraph of the story gave a nod to other possible candidates; the filing deadline was Thursday. How candidates other than Murphy, Roberts and Davis will fare in coverage as the primary nears remains to be seen. It depends on how they conduct their campaigns. The same considerations will be applied to other races as well, whether hotly contested or not. Overall, however, races that are contested will get the most coverage.
“Simply because a candidate files the appropriate papers and pays the fees charged to get on the ballot does not automatically guarantee him or her a certain amount of space in the newspaper,” Smolens said.
Which candidates get the most space in the newspaper is a matter of fairness to readers, Smolens said. “Our main goal is to give our readers the most information we can about the viable candidates who have a chance” of being elected.
Who determines who the viable candidates are? Is it the media or is it the candidates themselves?
“We don’t set the rules of politics,” Smolens said. But there are some unwritten rules that come into play to determine who the viable candidates are, he said. To win, candidates need strong support from various groups and organizations; they need financial backing and good political strategy.
“Not all candidates are able to put that together,” Smolens said. Candidates who get the most coverage are those who are politically astute, who have the backing and who have the best chance of being elected. “Those are the candidates readers need the most information about,” Smolens said.
Sometimes, viable candidates aren’t immediately recognizable. “We’ve seen throughout history grass-roots candidates who readily organize and become viable candidates.” Those people will be covered, Smolens said.
However, care will be taken to determine viable candidates. “It’s not fair to our readers to give the impression that certain candidates, who have no campaign organization or financing have the same chance of winning as those candidates who do,” he said.
But that does not mean there won’t be stories about challengers who appear not to be viable candidates. “At some point in our coverage, we mention who they are, what their occupation is, why they are running and what their platform is,” Smolens said. Just don’t expect to see every candidate mentioned in every story.
Yet the Union-Tribune frequently does stories and will do stories on so-called “minor candidates” who may not have a chance of winning but have something important to say, take interesting positions or have an impact on the community, Smolens said. Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate in the recall election, was one of those candidates. Although political experts did not think he could win the election, what he had to say was interesting and helped shape the debate.
“Winability isn’t the only thing that gets a candidate covered,” Smolens said. However, it’s incumbent to keep coverage in perspective and reflect how the race is shaping up.
Smolens noted that there are a number of people who file to run for office and are well-meaning even though they have no chance of winning. “We’re not belittling those candidates, but again our obligation is to inform our readers so they can make an intelligent choice about how to vote. If they want to vote for a minor candidate, they will have enough information to do so by reading our newspaper.”
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Gina Lubrano’s column commenting on the media appears Mondays. It is the policy of The San Diego Union-Tribune to correct all errors. To discuss accuracy or fairness in the news, please write to Gina Lubrano, readers representative, Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191, or telephone (619) 293-1525. Send e-mail to: readers.rep@uniontrib.com.
Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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