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While newspapers my not have the same amount of influence they once had, there is not a local politician alive who does not crave the endorsement of a city's leading newspaper. Even if a newspaper's readership is low, it still has a large amount of influence, even among those that don't read it, as they often still value its opinion on candidates for public office. That's why as soon as a newspaper endorses a candidate, the candidate runs a barrage of thirty-second ads bragging about the endorsement. An endorsement is not enough to sway someone in a highly-publicized national or statewide race, yet in a quiet local race where the issues are not clear and neither of the candidates are well known, an endorsement is often the deciding factor in how an independent votes, and it is the independents that decide who wins or loses in a vast majority of elections, Dayton especially, were there are more independents than Democrats or Republicans.
For these reasons a newspaper that has a strong bias for one party of another, or one ideology or another, is often strongly criticized by both the other party and independents who feel that a newspaper should be objective in its endorsements and only base them on a candidate's ability and credentials.
Dayton's only major newspaper since it took over the Dayton Journal-Herald, The Dayton Daily News, is often criticized for being to far to the left and not representing the community it serves. It is the topic of my research paper to determine weather or not the News' reputation as a "liberal rag sheet" is deserved. To do this, I used two criteria: The News' endorsement of candidates for the Dayton City Commission and Dayton Mayor, and its lead editorial on an issue that the division between the left and the right is clearly defined. I only used editorials written by the paper's own columnists, and I choose the first that appeared in the month of November in odd numbered years. The first ideological editorial usually appeared on the first of November in the 70's, but in the less polarized late 80's and 90's I often had to look at two weeks' worth of editorials to find a clearly ideological, where there would be little debate on whether the view was left or right.
An uninformed observer may object to the fact that I use the officially non-partisan mayoral and commission races in the City of Dayton to determine a newspaper's party preference, but the races for mayor and commission in Dayton are only nominally non-partisan. In fact, they are probably the most partisan races in the Miami Valley. Another objection is that a newspaper may have the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude, and have a strong bias toward incumbents, and if most of the incumbents over a period of years are of a single party, the appearance my be that the newspaper favors that party when it really only favors incumbents. To address this objection, I have include a separate table in my "Totals" section that omits endorsements of incumbents and includes only challengers and open seat endorsements. Both tables show similar results, indicating that the objection is not valid in this circumstance. With my introduction now complete, here are the results of my research:
1973 - Editorial is strongly in favor of busing, and attacks as "racist" the anti-busing Serving Our Schools (S.O.S.) party
Analysis - A liberal position far to the left of the people of Dayton, who elected S.O.S. members by large majorities throughout the 70's
1975 - Editorial opposes Gov. Rhodes's proposed bond issues and tax increase
Analysis - Fiscally Conservative
1977 - Editorial criticizes Congress for ending government funding of abortion through Medicaid
Analysis - Very Liberal, even the leftist-dominated "Watergate Class" that ran Congress in 1977 was opposed to using taxpayer dollars for abortions
1979 - Editorial in favor of a ten-cent bottle deposit
Analysis - Liberal, more then 75% of Ohioans opposed this measure in the election that year
1981 - Editorial opposing workers' compensation reform
Analysis - Moderate, workers' compensation reform was, and is, unpopular with the voters
1983 - Editorial praising those who backed the Sandinistas in Nicaragua civil war
Analysis - Very Liberal, the Sandinistas were the Soviets' Communist proxies in Nicaragua civil war, receiving up to 800 million dollars each year from the USSR and Cuba. It was later learned that the groups who spread positive publicity for the Sandinistas were controlled and funded by the Soviet Union
1985 - Editorial attacking Reagan's Supreme Court nominees
Analysis - Liberal
1987 - No ideological editorials in the first two weeks of November. The stock market crash and the horse race for both parties' presidential nomination were the main topics of the News' editorials.
1989 - Editorial criticizing Daniel Ortaga
Analysis - Normally criticizing a murderous Marxist dictator is not a very risky thing to do, but "Danny" Ortega was the darling of the leftist elite, praised by everyone form Ed Asner to Ron Dellums, but because the criticism in the editorial was qualified and mild, it only merits a moderate rating.
1991 - Editorial attacking Clarence Thomas
Analysis - Liberal
1993 - Editorial sharply criticizing Richard Clay Dixon and the Montgomery County Democratic Party for "Playing the race card"
Analysis - Conservative
1995 - Editorial criticizing Jesse Helms
Analysis - Liberals call Helms a jingoist and a racist, moderates call him devisive and old-fashioned, the editorial sounded more like the latter group
1997 - Editorial praising Senator Fred Thompson's proposal to abolish Federal Campaign Matching Funds
Analysis - Conservative, this position is diametrically opposed to what Common Cause type liberals believe in
Note: A "R," "D," or "I" after a candidate's name indicates his party, an asterisk ( * ) indicates an incumbent, a caret ( ^ ) indicates a challenger, and a tilde ( ~ ) indicates an open seat. Except where noted, the News endorsed the winning candidate.
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