{"id":299,"date":"2012-10-29T14:25:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T14:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/?p=299"},"modified":"2012-10-29T14:25:46","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T14:25:46","slug":"newspaper-flip-flops-obama-in-08-romney-in-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/2012\/10\/29\/newspaper-flip-flops-obama-in-08-romney-in-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Newspaper Flip-Flops: Obama in ’08, Romney in ’12"},"content":{"rendered":"

The online satire news source, the Onion, recently ran an article declaring that it was endorsing John Edwards in the 2012 Presidential Election. The obvious inaccuracy in endorsement was used to poke fun at the importance of news agencies declaring their official stance on the election. Newspaper endorsement of political candidates, however, may play an important role in influencing undecided voters. Analyzing endorsement decisions can shine light on important issues during the campaign and how journalists cover politics. I thought it would be interesting to look at two different newspapers that endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, but chose to switch their endorsement to Mitt Romney in 2012. These newspapers will offer insight into criticisms of Obama\u2019s first four years. The two largest newspapers to shy away from the President were the Houston Chronicle<\/a> and the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas<\/a> (with readerships of 384,007 and 195,455 respectively).<\/p>\n

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Fort Worth\u2019s Star-Telegram is quite centrist in its analysis of the presidential race and its endorsement of Mitt Romeny. Framing their decision around the second debate, the main focus of the article is economic policy. The Star-Telegram acknowledges the successes of Obama in foreign policy and social policy. They also point out that the President should not be blamed for neither the economic crisis nor the slow recovery from it. The primary argument for choosing Romney in 2012 instead of Obama is less of a response to the President\u2019s record and more of a desire for new eyes for a stagnant situation. The Star-Telegram places faith in Romeny\u2019s ability to combine his business and public service experience to work with a divided congress to create economic growth.<\/p>\n

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The Houston Chronicle, on the other hand, is much more conservative in its endorsement decision. The newspaper acknowledges that Obama was the first non-Republican candidate that they had endorsed in 44 years, claiming that they had fallen for his \u201csoaring rhetoric and\u2026 promise to move American politics beyond gridlock.\u201d Contrary to the Star-Telegram\u2019s endorsement, the Chronicle focuses mostly on Obama\u2019s failures as president. The paper\u2019s criticisms are much more geographically focused than the Star-Telegram. For example, the primary reason for the Chronicle\u2019s endorsement was Obama\u2019s failure with NASA and the energy industry. The Chronicle does add a caveat that Americans need Romney to further articulate his tax and budget proposals. Similar to the Star-Telegram, the Chronicle claims that Romney is a \u201cfix-it man\u201d that is willing and able to negotiate across party lines and repair the broken economy.<\/p>\n

It is interesting that the two largest papers to change their endorsements between 2008 and 2012 are from Texas. It makes sense that a more conservative state would be the first to jump off the Obama bandwagon. Other major papers that made such a switch come from Florida (Orlando Sentinel and Fort Lauderdale\u2019s Sun Sentinel) and Tennessee (Nashville\u2019s Tennessean). I believe that the primary reason for endorsement is readership, newspapers want to appeal to the local constituency and support a candidate that the local readers would agree with. Thus, papers attempting to attract new readers that would want to endorse a more popular candidate. In 2008, Obama\u2019s soaring popularity made it justifiable for a conservative or centrist paper to endorse the President. Obama\u2019s 2012 approval ratings are much, especially in the south and amongst right-leaning voters, making it much harder for southern conservative newspapers to endorse the incumbent.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The online satire news source, the Onion, recently ran an article declaring that it was endorsing John Edwards in the 2012 Presidential Election. The obvious inaccuracy in endorsement was used to poke fun at the importance of news agencies declaring their official stance on the election. Newspaper endorsement of political candidates, however, may play an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endorsements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/journalism-and-american-democracy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}