NEWSPAPER endorsements are controversial for any number of reasons not the least among which is that readers can interpret endorsements as a paper supporting a particular candidate. Over the past several years, papers from the Chicago Sun-Times to the Dayton Daily News have decided to forego making endorsements.
Ward 3 Council member Taylor was endorsed by The Ann Arbor News on July 13. The piece was a bit of a back-handed compliment. In the endorsement it stated: “While we believe Taylor is the best choice in this vote, we also want to acknowledge that he’s been a strong ally of Mayor John Hieftje and needs to be ready to set his own course as mayor…. We’d encourage Taylor to distinguish his time as mayor by not just staying today’s course.”
The former Ann Arbor News got burned by its 2008 endorsement of Taylor in which editors described the Council challenger as someone who “approaches the job in a professional, businesslike manner that will serve his constituents well and be a positive addition to council.”
Six months later, Taylor was embroiled in an email scandal for which the newspaper took him to task for acting inappropriately and unprofessionally.
Taylor tried to spin the scandal by taking the newspaper to task for mistakenly interpreting what he wrote about “dim bulb” Ward 5 residents. He never denied using email inappropriately during open meetings.
The Council members’ misuse of email during open meetings resulted in an Open Meetings Act lawsuit against the city; City Attorney Stephen Postema was forced to settle.
The 2014 endorsement appears nowhere on Taylor’s campaign website or his Facebook page. At a recent candidate forum attended by over 100 people, he didn’t mention the newspaper’s endorsement, either.
On July 13, this comment appeared on Taylor’s Facebook page: “a sincere congrats on the Ann Arbor news endorsement. I do believe in sincerely congratulating those who run for mayor and other elected officials. best wishes on your campaign.”
The candidate never responded to the comment though his wife, Eva Rosenwald, acknowledged the it several days afterwards.
A request for comment to Paula Gardner, the editor of The Ann Arbor News, about the Council member’s snub of the endorsement resulted in an email in which Gardner declined to comment on the topic.
@FM You’re right, but the article is accurate: it’s not listed in his endorsements or on his Facebook page, except by someone who congratulated him for it.
Actually, I have received at least three mailers from the Taylor campaign with the endorsement on it.
From a quality perspective, this article is uninformed even with respect to this paper’s abysmal standards.
@southside, if you see Chris Taylor has posted the endorsement on his campaign website or FB page, let us know.
At the event hosted by St. Claire and TBE, Sally Petersen mentioned her endorsement, but Taylor did not mention his endorsement from the Ann Arbor News.
It’s worth noting he competed for the endorsement, got it and isn’t using it on his social media sites or when he was at the mayoral forum attended by 100s of people.
@ The Ann Arbor Independent Editorial Team
Candidates can mention whichever endorsements they choose. I’m surprised you cite Petersen’s choice to plug her endorsement from the Ann Arbor Board of Realtors when you previously wrote, “Ward 2 Council member Sally Petersen used the forum as an opportunity to announce her endorsement by the Ann Arbor Board of Realtors. Moans from the audience and incredulous looks indicated Petersen perhaps chose the wrong moment to talk up that organization. ”
I believe that Taylor is at liberty to mention his endorsements in any manner that he chooses. Furthermore, perhaps he chose to focus on issues of housing and homelessness at the forum rather than discussing his own credentials. What evidence is there that he competed for the endorsement and then snubbed them?
@AnnAborVoter/@southside Candidates can mention any endorsement they choose. Right you are. We can all look forward to seeing if he chooses to use it or not. It’s just not customary for a candidate to compete for an endorsement and then not use it. For a candidate to get unsolicited endorsements from groups in the form of mailers, advertisements, etc…is one thing. To compete for an endorsement is another. You ask for the endorsement. The presumption on the part of the newspaper staff is you want it and will use it. An endorsement is not a one-way street. Newspapers use candidate endorsements to curry credibility as impartial judges of whom readers should vote for.
The entire premise of this article is patently false