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ink-splotch · 7 years

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For the DVD/book commentary - "If Grey had been awake, if his friends were here, Jack might have jerked back at that, stung. But it was just the Giantkiller and Cassandra's cold eyes in the near dark, breathing the same stale air. Cassandra watched for the flinch and smiled when it didn't come. Jack said, "do you know what you've done to the world? Do you understand how much hurt you've caused?" She laughed, a short shock of noise."

SPOILERS BELOW

Cass is absolutely exhausting to write. I love her, but oh my god.

This scene was, among other things, a parallel to that first scene with Cassandra and Jack in the Graves’ keep. (Side note: that scene was the first one I wrote with her! That was not the dynamic I was planning for them, but golly gosh it was the dynamic that happened). This time, she’s the prisoner, and that does change some things but one of the most interesting things for me here was all the ways nothing really changed between them.

Cassandra has lost so much of everything that made her powerful. Her father is dead, his empire crumbling. She has no Spider, no guards to call, no machines, no economic, political, or military power. She has always only been a fragile young woman with a lot of brute force at her beck and call-- in one way of looking at, at least. And now all that power is gone.

But Jack knows her, not just knows of her. He’s never been most afraid of her guards, her cells, or how many ways he could die in them. In the right light, Cassandra will always be the scariest thing in any room she is in, and especially to Jack Farris. They have a heavy history, and Jack has open wounds (has always had open wounds) in places that Liam never did, and that George never allowed herself.

Cassandra is a lot of things-- one of them is lonely, one of them is terrified, and one of them is stagnant. They fall straight back into their repertoire here. This scene still ends with Jack, exhausted, sliding down the wall to draw his knees against his chest.

Jack doesn’t flinch, in the line you quoted above, because when he’s in a room with Cassandra, he believes the poison she says about him. It doesn’t matter who’s a prisoner or who’s in charge, because this isn't about power dynamics so much as it is about trust-- and Jack, in a weird twisted way, trusts Cassandra to see his worst. He trusts her to handle his worst-- and he doesn’t feel responsible for hiding the ugly parts of himself from her, the way he tries to hide them from his friends. (You’ll notice Jack does similar, though perhaps less extreme or intimate behaviors, with other villains or people he doesn’t feel obligated to protect-- Thorne in RtD, for instance, or the fight with Watcher at the end of Beanstalk).

Jack came up to see her here because he was confused and concerned for what she might do; because he was adrift and being hurt by Cassandra was at least something he recognized; because when he is scared of things he likes to step into their spaces and remind himself he can survive them.

And Grey is awake for the entirety of this scene for the exact reason he says later -- he wanted to see what Jack would do, alone in a room with his worst enemy.

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the-desolated-quill · 6 years

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Dark Water - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

We’re finally coming to the end of another series and I for one will be glad to see the back of Series 8. The only thing that elevates this series slightly above the dire Series 7 is Peter Capaldi, who I found to be far more tolerable than Matt Smith was. Apart from that, this really hasn’t been a very good series, and now Moffat is here to finish it off.

I occasionally glance at what the so called ‘professional’ critics had to say just out of morbid curiosity, and I was amazed by the number of people praising the opening few scenes for being shocking and emotional. I personally thought it was a load of utter twoddle. Clara is trying to tell Danny something, and there are loads of post-it notes on the wall for some reason, when suddenly Danny gets run over by a car. Shocking? Tragic? No, not really. I think I’ve made it perfectly clear by this point how much I dislike Danny, so I didn’t even so much as feel a slight twinge when he got turned into roadkill. But what really undermines the supposed tragedy of it all for me is just how utterly random it is. The Moffat fans may love to keep kissing their precious auteur’s feet and proclaim how much of a genius he is, but the truth is he’s never been very good at plotting his bullshit series arcs. Just look at how Amy’s pregnancy and River Song were handled in Series 6. It’s as though Moffat is just making this shit up as he goes along, and this couldn’t be any more obvious here in Dark Water. In order for the Doctor and Clara to start paying attention to all the Promised Land bollocks, Danny needs to die now. So he just dies. He might as well have had a grand piano fall on top of him or something.

And then we come to one of the most insulting scenes I’ve ever seen in New Who. Clara threatening the Doctor. Again, loads of people praised the fuck out of this scene to the point where I’m beginning to question their sanity. This whole volcano scene is really emblematic of just how rubbish a writer Moffat really is. Rather than having the Doctor and Clara actually talk this out, relying on the emotions of the characters and the performances of the actors to carry the scene, Moffat has to resort to stupid, over the top tactics in a desperate bid to wrong foot the audience. Not only does it strip away any potential emotional impact Danny’s death could have had on their relationship, it also makes Clara come across like an arrogant brat. I could be more forgiving if Clara was driven to do this out of desperation because the Doctor wouldn’t listen to her, but no. She goes in there with the intent to threaten the Doctor. There’s no buildup or anything. She just immediately goes for the most extreme method. She doesn’t come across like an actual human being who’s grieving and in pain. She’s more like a spoilt child having a temper tantrum because she’s not getting her way. Then it’s all made utterly pointless thanks to the Doctor’s powers of plot convenience, revealing that the whole volcano sequence was just a dream state, which just underlines the fact that Moffat is more concerned with pathetically proving to everyone how clever he thinks he is rather than getting us to emotionally connect with Clara. Seriously, what does the volcano sequence do that a simple conversation between the two characters couldn’t?

Plus it’s hard to believe that Clara would go to such lengths for Danny considering the way their relationship has been portrayed over the course of this series. Moffat is desperately trying to convince us that this is a love for the ages and that the two can’t survive without each other, even going so far as to imply that Clara has some kind of death wish, except it’s hard to take it seriously because, due to Moffat’s own incompetence as a writer, this has got to be one of the most dysfunctional relationships I think I’ve ever seen. Danny is a controlling, insecure arsehole who thinks anywhere outside of London is too dangerously exciting, and Clara is a spoilt, arrogant thrill seeker who constantly lies to him for virtually no reason. These two have virtually nothing in common, and their relationship has been so toxic and so unhealthy that it’s hard to really be invested in it at all. I’m not saying Clara shouldn’t be sad that Danny is dead. I just don’t buy for a second that she would be prepared to die for him if she can’t get him back.

So the Doctor and Clara are off to find Heaven. And very briefly, can I just ask, can you imagine any other Doctor doing something like this? The Doctor may be open minded, but he’s a man of science first and foremost. Scientific evidence simply does not support the existence of an afterlife, and considering how dismissive the Tenth Doctor was towards the idea of God or the Devil in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, it’s hard to imagine that Twelve would be willing to try and find Heaven just to save one person. Why hasn’t the Doctor tried to find it sooner? It’s like Listen all over again. Clara is Moffat’s very special creation and everything has to revolve around her even if it means bending the Doctor’s character completely out of shape.

Considering how largely secular the Doctor Who fanbase is, I imagine I can’t have been the only person with raised eyebrows the moment we arrived at 3W. But it’s not just that. Did anyone honestly believe this was the actual afterlife? Again, reading the reviews, I was surprised by the amount of controversy surrounding the ‘don’t cremate me’ scene. Not only did I think that was just plain goofy, the fact that this is a Moffat script does unfortunately undermine the credibility of all of this. Have any of these people ever actually watched a Moffat story before? He’s basically the televisual equivalent of M Night Shyamalan. The man is so desperate to surprise the audience and show off how much of a genius he is that he’s prepared to shove any random bullshit twist into his stories even if it comes at the cost of the characters, the integrity of the narrative, or the audience’s trust in the show. And that’s the problem with trying to constantly pull the rug out from under us. Do it too many times and eventually people will wise up and stop giving a shit about what’s happening. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me constantly and I’ll never trust anything you say to me ever again. So rather than be intrigued by the 3W facility and the prospect of an actual afterlife, I’m just impatiently drumming my fingers on the arm of my chair, waiting for Moffat to get the fuck on with it and tell us the big twist.

And what a treat we’re in for this episode. Turns out there’s not one bullshit twist, but TWO bullshit twists. We’ll start with the most painfully obvious twist. Missy is the Master.

I mean who the fuck else could she have been?

Yes the Master is back and, even with a sex change, the character is still just as rubbish as before. The Master has always had about as much depth and complexity as a pantomime villain, and Michelle Gomez seems to be going the same route John Simm went down by portraying the character as boringly insane (a gimmick so old now, it’s practically been fossilised. Not even the Joker can get away with that motive anymore). But it gets even worse when you factor the sex change into the equation. You’d think I’d be all in favour of a female Master considering how long I’ve been campaigning for a female Doctor, but unfortunately Missy is a Moffat written woman, which means she ends up falling into the same sassy, kooky dominatrix role that every single one of his female characters fall into. (even with a non-romantic Doctor, New Who can’t resist shoving in a pointless snogging scene. It’s pathetic). Moffat constantly boasts about how he paved the way for a female Doctor, but I honestly think Missy is more likely to put people off the idea than encourage it. At this point Moffat just comes across as a clueless, sexist bastard who doesn’t have a single original thought whizzing around in his peanut of a brain.

Also, Missy? Fucking Missy?! Why Missy? Why can’t she just call herself the Master? What, does this mean Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor is going to have to call herself Nursie?

‘But Quill, women can be doctors too.’

MY POINT PRECISELY!

Doctor and Master. As in a doctorate and a masters degree. Get it? Moffat doesn’t seriously think that Master actually means... Sigh. Of course he does. The moron.

And then there’s the Master’s sexuality. You may have occasionally heard the odd fan theory floating around that the Doctor and the Master were... well... more than just good friends. A fan theory not entirely without weight. There are some very discreet hints in the classic series if you look hard enough (whether they’re intentional or not is another matter altogether), and RTD didn’t exactly downplay the homoerotic subtext during his tenure. Series 8 is really the show’s first official confirmation of this. In Deep Breath, Missy refers to the Doctor as her boyfriend and in this very episode she says the Doctor’s hearts belong to her. All very progressive... except the Master is a woman now. So when they’re both men, any mention of the dreaded gay must be kept to a minimum, but now one of them is a woman, suddenly they can be as overt and explicit as they want? Not only is the homophobia blatantly obvious, it also adds to the regressive sexism of Missy’s character, implying a male Master has more self control but a female Master is overcome with lust and can’t help but throw herself at the Doctor. It’s like I’ve always said. Moffat is more concerned with looking progressive rather than putting in the effort to actually be progressive. To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement and a fucking half.

The second twist I actually didn’t see coming, but only because of how fucking stupid the idea is. It’s the Cybermen. But that doesn’t make sense. Cybermen convert living people. They’re not zombies. They can’t convert the dead. It’s been previously established multiple times that they have no use for the dead. And part of their motive is to save people from death. Converting the dead directly completely contradicts their motivation. Also how do the Cybermen manage to convert people like the soldiers from Into The Dalek or the policeman from The Caretaker? Weren’t they disintegrated? What is there left to convert? And why wait for people to die in the first place? Why not just convert living people like they usually do? It just doesn’t gel with what we know about the Cybermen. And that bloody Nethersphere is just beyond daft. Before the Cybermen would just remove your emotions whether you want them to or not. Now they politely wait for you to give permission first. (Just when you think Danny couldn’t get anymore pathetic. Is he seriously considering erasing his emotions just because his girlfriend effectively dumped him? Isn’t he supposed to be a grown man? Get a grip, you spineless bell-end).

Well that was utter rubbish. But don’t worry. I’m sure Part 2 will put things right. After all, Moffat always writes satisfying conclusions to his series arcs, right?

#dark water #steven moffat #doctor who #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #clara oswald #jenna coleman #the master #michelle gomez #cybermen #bbc #review #spoilers

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19

In 1918, an eerily familiar pandemic clenched a deadly grip on humankind. Erroneously referred to as the “Spanish Flu,” American state governments enforced business closures and issued stay-at-home orders to slow its spread. For essential outdoor travel, doctors prescribed the use of face masks, or “flu fences.” They might as well have been tackling an avalanche with a snow shovel. By the time the virus finally fizzled out in early 1919, an estimated 50 to 100 million lives had been lost worldwide. In America alone, the death toll reached an estimated 675,000 — more than every war in the 20th century combined. And yet, for the best part of the last century, this deadly killer went all but forgotten, and things would likely have remained that way were it not for our current quarantined existence.

The reasons for our collective memory lapse are as nuanced as they are numerous. A large portion of the blame can be attributed to the subjectivity of history, and the fact there was so much else happening at the time, from the First World War to a truly unprecedented period of wealth, innovation, and change best known as the Roaring Twenties. The way the virus hit, ravaging individual communities for a few weeks and then moving on, and the fact that scientists simply didn’t understand the nature of the illness, also played a part. But whatever the reasons, the deadliest pandemic in modern history was soon swept under the carpet of time.

By forgetting that the 1918 influenza ever happened, its influence on the subsequent decade — one of the most progressive and dynamic in American history — also goes ignored. But some who have studied the era believe the pandemic played a much greater role in shaping the Roaring Twenties than history textbooks give credit for. (As a benchmark, the Roaring Twenties is defined as the period between 1920 to the Wall Street crash at the end of 1929.)

With so many parallels between that outbreak and the circumstances surrounding Covid-19, one wonders whether a wafer-thin silver lining to the dark cloud of disease is that America may soon be ripe for another cultural renaissance. So VinePair reached out to drinks historians, university professors, and acclaimed bartenders to uncover the lessons we can learn from the past, and to speculate on what they might tell us about life after the coronavirus.

Examining the Historical Parallels

“It was who-gives-a-damn-we’re-all-gonna-die nihilism coupled with Prohibition in the U.S. that created the Roaring Twenties,” says Anistatia Miller, a British-based drinks historian and cocktail specialist. Framing the sentiments of the time, she adds: “Who cares if I drink bathtub gin and dance the night away? Another war could kill us, another pandemic could wipe us out.”

Had the pandemic not occurred, Miller believes that the end of World War I would not have had such a profound impact on society. “Look at subsequent wars: The Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam conflict, they led to conservatism, not blatant debauchery,” she explains. “Looking at the Roaring Twenties, the cabaret culture of the Weimar Republic, the cafe culture of the Bright Young Ones in London and Paris, they all had their twinge of decadence generated by nihilism.”

Others who have studied the era agree, but believe there are additional factors at play. “I would love to say [the 1918 pandemic] is the reason why women cut their dresses off at the knees and cut their hair, but I think that’s too simplistic,” says Dr. Jessica Spector, a Yale University professor of alcohol history, cocktails, and ethics, and a scholar of intellectual history and drinks culture.

Spector, who focuses on the ways in which cultural values are expressed through drink, is writing two papers on this specific time period. She instead describes the flu as “the preamble” to the Roaring Twenties. “The decade from 1918 to 1928 was one of radical change in almost every area of life you can imagine: home life, civil engineering, domestic and international relations, medicine, entertainment, politics, and civil rights,” she explains.

Women’s place in society drastically changed after winning the right to vote and gaining employment in roles that required professional certifications, like nursing. The introduction of the assembly line transformed the U.S. into a manufacturing powerhouse and global leader of industry. Newly available inventions such as radios, TV, and cinema forged significant cultural shifts. “You’ve got people listening to the same music and watching the same pictures; all of a sudden people can share a culture,” Spector says.

In some respects, one could argue we’re starting to see similar things happen now. Coronavirus has brought us together, figuratively speaking, in shared moments of appreciation for health care workers and via virtual happy hours and other online gatherings. These connections make the world feel smaller — so much so that one might question if “social distancing” is the correct term, or whether “physical distancing” might be more appropriate.

Other parallels with the lead-up to the Roaring Twenties can be drawn from the grave state of the economy. According to financial analysts, we are almost certainly entangled in a deep recession. “I feel like the 2008 financial crisis was just a dry run for this,” Harvard economist Kenneth S. Rogoff told The New York Times. At first glance, that sentiment doesn’t mirror the financial prosperity enjoyed throughout most of the Roaring Twenties. But just two years before the decade began, America was gripped by a seven-month recession that was soon followed by an 18-month recession between 1920 and 1921.

Of course, any resemblances sketched between the 1920s and now must take into account the most significant event in America’s drinking history: Prohibition. But just as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did nothing to curb the consumption of alcohol, the lack of sales restrictions on alcohol (Pennsylvania, notwithstanding) does not negate the chances of another cultural renaissance.

“One thing we have learned from the 1918 flu pandemic, its precursor the Black Death, and [are] beginning to see from today’s Covid-19 pandemic, is that when it’s over, people will see-saw from isolation into some form of mega-socialization once again,” Miller says.

But exactly where that “mega-socialization” takes place is another question. Will drinks enthusiasts return to the bars and restaurants that have slaked their thirst and proven to be reliable social venues in the past, or will it unfold in the very spaces where we spent the pandemic — inside our own homes?

A New Era of Home Entertaining?

Many have shaken their first Daiquiri or landed upon their preferred Martini proportions during this pandemic (thanks, in no small part, to bartenders themselves and social media platforms). Those folks won’t forget those skills overnight, nor the fact that they now possess them. And as for that barrel-aged Manhattan they just spent months perfecting? People will certainly want to share a taste of that, rather than just Instagram snaps.

Others, meanwhile, have passed the hours sipping batched, to-go cocktails from their favorite bars and restaurants. When the government relaxes social distancing measures, some of those establishments may conclude that the pursuit of on-premise profits is no longer viable in a changed hospitality landscape. Instead, they could turn to launching ready-to-drink cocktail brands — a category that was already gaining popularity. That would certainly strike another tick in the column marked “staying home” rather than “going out.”

In Shanghai, one bar owner is already innovating with a new business model. Daniel An just opened cocktail dispensary Ready To Drink (RTD for short) in the city’s Xintiandi neighborhood. Derek Brown, a Washington D.C., bar owner and drinks expert, describes the innovative setup as a mix between “Cinnabon and a cocktail bar,” serving up pre-packaged cocktails, like the Shanghai Mule and Coffee Negroni, and fruit juices on tap that guests can spike with a selection of spirits. Brown says it shows us the path going forward if American legislation will allow it. “Now that we’ve seen the light, how can we go back?” he says.

And there’s good reason to believe many drinkers may be less than eager to make a beeline for bars and restaurants. Dr. Michael Scherer, an assistant professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and a specialist in alcohol use and misuse, believes that the lasting societal effects of the coronavirus hinge on whether or not the virus is seasonal and if it returns in the fall, as many health professionals are speculating. “Come October, November, if it re-emerges, its impact on society and the hospitality industry will be more dramatic,” he says.

Scherer explains his theory using the analogy of a faulty car: Imagine you drive a car and it breaks down, he explains. After taking it to be fixed, the mechanic tells you, “It’s perfectly safe now, you have nothing to worry about.” But then, when you take the car out, it breaks down again.

“Two things are going to happen from that,” Scherer says: “You’re going to have less trust in the people that tell you that your car is OK, and even when you do go back out — you will again, eventually — you’ll always have some concern that your car could break down again.”

So just as many of us will be itching to get out and patronize our favorite eating and drinking establishments, many may continue to limit their trips outdoors to only the strictly necessary — even after stay-at-home guidelines relax.

There will, of course, always be exceptions to such rules. We’ve already glimpsed the nihilistic disregard of the 1920s in the form of drunken students “trying to make the most” of spring break on the beaches of Miami. “If I get corona, I get corona,” a particularly red-cheeked, glossy-eyed young man told CBS. “At the end of the day I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.”

“Younger people tend to feel a little bit more invincible,” Dr. Scherer says.

A Renaissance for Drinking Establishments?

Others will feel that a healthy dose of IRL social contact will be just what the doctor ordered when this pandemic eventually ends. “The obvious result of everyone being stuck home is that everyone is being forced to become a more proficient cook and bartender,” says acclaimed bartender, journalist, and author Jim Meehan. “While one might surmise that this might lead to more home entertainment in the future, I think it will actually have the opposite effect.”

As soon as the coast is clear, he says, and as long as people have money in their pockets, “they’ll yearn to return to bars and restaurants.”

But this notion hangs on the same thread of bars and restaurants surviving enforced closures and a subsequent recession. It also assumes there will be no capacity restrictions on venues like the kind briefly imposed before the introduction of stay-at-home measures. If those make a return — temporary or otherwise — old business models will no longer be viable, and many venues will be permanently shuttered.

Such restrictions also threaten the very philosophy behind going out to eat or drink.

“As long as people have been around, we’ve gathered around the fire and the watering hole; and that’s what restaurants really are: You get a cold drink and a hot meal and you’ve got the best of both worlds,” says John Clark-Ginnetti, owner of the New Haven cocktail bar 116 Crown and Dr. Spector’s co-teacher at Yale University. “If this is going to make us stand six feet apart at the watering hole, it’ll profoundly change everything we do, and we’ll have to rethink life as we know it.”

For some, those safety measures will be regarded with the nihilistic abandon of a gleaming-toothed Jay Gatsby. Others, meanwhile, may turn their efforts to perfecting their own private speakeasies. There’s no question that we’re heading into uncharted waters, and all we can really know is this: As sure as the sun shines, a new dawn of drinking is peeking over the horizon.

The article A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/spanish-flu-roaring-twenties-history/

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johnboothus · 4 years

Text

A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19

Examining the Historical Parallels

A New Era of Home Entertaining?

“Younger people tend to feel a little bit more invincible,” Dr. Scherer says.

A Renaissance for Drinking Establishments?

As soon as the coast is clear, he says, and as long as people have money in their pockets, “they’ll yearn to return to bars and restaurants.”

Such restrictions also threaten the very philosophy behind going out to eat or drink.

The article A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/spanish-flu-roaring-twenties-history/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/a-familiar-rhyme-what-the-spanish-flu-and-the-roaring-twenties-tell-us-about-what-comes-after-covid-19

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isaiahrippinus · 4 years

Text

A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19

Examining the Historical Parallels

A New Era of Home Entertaining?

“Younger people tend to feel a little bit more invincible,” Dr. Scherer says.

A Renaissance for Drinking Establishments?

As soon as the coast is clear, he says, and as long as people have money in their pockets, “they’ll yearn to return to bars and restaurants.”

Such restrictions also threaten the very philosophy behind going out to eat or drink.

The article A Familiar Rhyme: What the Spanish Flu and the Roaring Twenties Tell Us About What Comes After Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/spanish-flu-roaring-twenties-history/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/614933174880993280

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djgblogger-blog · 7 years

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Northam win in Virginia shows why newspapers should stop endorsing candidates

http://bit.ly/2hesO79

Ralph Northam, a folksy Democrat from the Eastern Shore, beat out Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, in Virginia’s heated gubernatorial race. Northam’s victory was remarkably comfortable. He won with 54 percent of the vote. His opponent, a Washington lobbyist who sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump, received 45 percent.

But you would have predicted just the opposite if you had been following newspaper endorsements in Virginia leading up to Election Day. I’m a journalism professor, so I was closely following the media’s engagement in this election.

And over the past month or so, I observed with interest as most of Virginia’s newspapers favored Gillespie over Northam, a pediatric neurologist who served six years as a Virginia state senator and four as the state’s lieutenant governor.

Who got it wrong

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, in an Oct. 27 editorial, for example, praised Gillespie for running “an energetic, inclusive, moderate-conservative, solutions-oriented campaign.” In a swipe at Northam, the paper said Gillespie “knows, unlike most Democrats, that more government spending is not the cure for all that ails society.”

Newspapers in Roanoke, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg and Halifax also urged readers to vote for Gillespie.

One week later, in early November, the editorial board of the Daily Progress, Charlottesville’s local paper, opined that because Republicans also control Virginia’s General Assembly, “we believe Ed Gillespie has the best chance of leading Virginia to a brighter economic future.”

The editors of The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg agreed. “Unlike his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, Gillespie is not in favor of expanding Medicaid,” they asserted just days before Northam would go on to win Virginia, a Republican stronghold turned swing state.

In the end, Northam received endorsements from only three newspapers: The Virginian-Pilot, in Norfolk, where he now lives, the Daily Press of nearby Newport News and The Washington Post.

Credibility problem

As Northam cruised to his nine-point victory over Gillespie, I couldn’t help but think that maybe it’s time for newspapers to stop telling their dwindling number of subscribers how to vote.

News organizations already have a credibility problem: Polls show that only 13 percent of Americans trust their local paper “a lot.”

And while journalists swear there’s a wall between the editorial staff that endorses candidates and the reporters who write the news, many readers are skeptical: They suspect that a newspaper’s endorsement influences what should be objective coverage.

In my opinion, getting out of the endorsement game would help newspapers regain trust, fend off charges of bias and show respect for the public’s decision-making abilities.

Some opt out

Some news organizations are starting to recognize this. In the run-up to the gubernatorial election, the editorial board of the Martinsville Bulletin wrote that the newspaper wouldn’t be making endorsements in state or local races: “It’s not for a lack of interest. It’s that we truly do not feel it’s our job to tell any of you who to vote for.”

The Bulletin, which serves communities along Virginia’s border with North Carolina, questioned the point of endorsements:

A person or organization announces who they support, with the implication everyone else should follow suit. We see that as tricky for a news organization, where the goal is to be objective. If we do a piece on candidate X, but we’ve endorsed candidate Y, how can you be expected to trust it?

That’s a valiant acknowledgment from a small town paper, but newspaper endorsements – no matter their credibility or weight – won’t be easy to extirpate. They have a very long history in the United States.

During the presidential election of 1860, for example, the editorial page of The New York Times announced its support for “Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois, familiarly known as ‘Old Abe,’ age 51, height six feet seven, by profession Rail-Splitter.”

Abraham Lincoln won that election, of course. But overall, newspaper endorsements have had mixed results in influencing voters or forecasting election outcomes. Most papers, for instance, endorsed Hillary Clinton over Trump last fall – and were soundly repudiated at the polls.

Bad for business

It’s not just arrogant for newspapers to issue endorsements in elections – it may also be financially unwise.

Newspapers already face severe economic challenges as they lose readers – and thus advertising – to digital platforms. Readers turned off by an endorsement are likely to seek their news elsewhere. Digital outlets like Slate and BuzzFeed do not endorse candidates.

Indeed, in Virginia you could already see signs of readers’ rejection of this blatant display of politics in the media. In the comments reacting to the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s endorsement of Gillespie, one person wrote, “If the RTD thinks he is a wise choice, I now understand why the RTD is losing readership.”

Not the best move, in the end. Screenshot, Richmond Times Dispatch

Many media experts believe that for newspapers to survive, they must position themselves as community forums – platforms for engaging the audience and fostering a dialogue. That means hosting a conversation, not delivering a lecture.

By forgoing endorsements, newspapers could better fulfill that role: They would be making a statement that news organizations provide impartial information – and readers should act on it as they see fit. Plus, if Virginia’s race is any indication, they’re not so great at at the endorsement game, anyway.

Jeff South does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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