Election season often brings questions about how the Herald-Tribune decides which races to endorse and how those decisions are made.
Transparency is important to us, so we asked Opinion Editor Roger Brown
to answer some of the most common questions about the newspaper's endorsement process, from how candidates are evaluated to what role we hope our recommendations play for Sarasota-area voters.
Q. What are some of the factors that decide which races to endorse?
Of course, every race and issue on the ballot is an important one for local voters. In choosing which specific races to endorse, we look for those that will impact a significant segment of our readers and directly affect many of the major issues facing Sarasota and Sarasota County.
Q. How do you go about deciding which candidates will be endorsed?
We hold separate interviews with the candidates, and we won’t endorse a candidate who does not agree to sit down, in some form, for a one-on-one interview. The interviews largely focus on public policy and the issues that are most important in that specific race. We use these interviews, along with reviews of the candidates’ established positions, records and past work, as resources in reaching our decisions about which candidates to endorse. All endorsements are made in consultation with Herald-Tribune Executive Editor Wade Tatangelo.
Q. What role would you like endorsements to play in helping voters make their decisions?
We want our endorsements to play constructive and informative roles in helping our readers make voting choices they feel good about on Election Day. Our endorsements aren’t about picking who's going to win. They're about choosing the candidates that we believe, after a rigorous process, are best suited to make the greatest contributions to life in Sarasota and Sarasota County.
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: How Sarasota Herald-Tribune makes endorsements
