The Chicago Tribune has endorsed Republican incumbent George W.Bush for this Tuesday's election; so has the Rocky-MountainNews.
Meanwhile, the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatchhave thrown their support behind Democrat John Kerry.
So, who is the Ball State Daily News endorsing?
No one.
Newspapers have a long-standing tradition during electionsyears: gather the staff executives, sit around a table, take avote, discuss who the paper should endorse in the following day'sedition and then craft a thoughtful piece of work on why thecommunity should feel the same way. The practice dates back to theearliest days of our country's media history.
That was then and this is now.
At the time, such high power was inadvertently given tonewspapers; that was the nature of the beast. As the sole newssource for most, if not all, of the world, papers had the unsaidsubheadings of "If it's printed, it must be true."
Well, years later, we know this to not always be the case.
We also know that our opinions are just that: our own. Which iswhy we have chosen to not endorse a specific candidate for thiselection.
This week, the Daily News has run wall-to-wall electioncoverage. We expanded the paper to bring you, the voter, the mostrelevant and practical information a college student could want. Assuch, it would seem rather odd for us to run this marathon coveragein hopes of informing you to the best of our ability and at the endtell you where to cast your vote.
That's hypocrisy; not democracy.
If you are curious, we did gather our executives, we did takethe vote, and we concluded one important thing: We all have ourseparate, yet equal opinions.
We are, in fact, all individuals - just like you.
We gathered and distributed the information for you to make yourjudgments; the same information that some of us will use to castour own votes Tuesday.
For our endorsement we suggest that you use this information, aswell as anything else you can gather, to shape your opinion andcast your vote in the way you feel will best benefit ourcountry.
Because at the end of the day, if you need a newspaper to tellyou who to vote for in this, or any other election, maybe youshouldn't be voting in the first place.
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