endorsement that wasn't, The

IN 1998, The Charlotte Observer's publisher, Peter Ridder, had been here a year. A U.S. Senate race was on the ballot. One candidate, a political novice, was generally in tune with our editorial positions. The incumbent wasn't. Talking with Peter shortly before the election, I learned he wanted to endorse the incumbent. I didn't. In two decades, it was the first disagreement I'd had with a publisher over a major endorsement.

If you're an editorial page editor reporting to an editor or publisher (or, in my case, both), you either learn or you look for a job in PR. Here's what I learned.

1. Take nothing for granted. Get controversial issues on the table early, before opinions harden. If there are disagreements, you have time to work them out.

2. Put yourself in the publisher's shoes. Peter was in St. Paul, Minn., when Sen. Lauch Faircloth was at his worst. How? Protecting the environment is one of our top editorial priorities. Early in his term Faircloth was an environmental disaster. A hog farmer himself, he tried to loosen federal restrictions on giant hog farms and weaken wetlands protection. He opposed campaign finance reform -- another of our priorities - and so blatantly aided his contributors that Forbes magazine featured him in an article titled "Senators for Sale."

By the time Peter arrived, Faircloth's focus had shifted. He had left the environmental subcommittee to become the first North Carolinian on the Appropriations Committee since 1911. He brought federal millions to Charlotte and North Carolina. He also served on the Banking Committee, an important post to Charlotte, the nation's second-largest banking center.

What Peter saw of Faircloth wasn't bad - not a Jesse Helms clone, but a sensible, business-oriented senator well positioned to help our city and state. Peter had not seen what we saw.

3. Remember, our job is to inform and persuade -- readers, certainly, but also publishers. Editorials are at the center of our work. They are only a small part of a busy publisher's concerns. If the publisher doesn't know what you know and agree with what you think, don't assume it's a disaster; consider it a challenge. I failed to make sure early on that Peter understood the basis for our thinking.

4. So you disagree. A newspaper isn't the Marines. Your job is to stand up for what you think, not to shut up and follow orders. In our case, all the editorial writers, editor Jennie Buckner, and I favored one candidate and Peter favored another. We argued and eventually compromised with an editorial evaluating both but endorsing neither.

5. When you lose an argument, don't sulk or whine; editorial writers learn quickly that thousands of readers who are just as moral and smart as we are disagree with us because they see the priorities differently. The publisher may, too. Nearly half of North Carolina voters, including some of my good friends, favored Faircloth.

6. If you disagree on principle, you have a choice: Go along and live to argue another day, or resign. If the disagreement seems to be an anomaly, I'd say stick it out. If you think it reveals a fundamental difference over the newspaper's core values, I'd say resign. If you're expected to write something you don't believe, you're in the wrong job.

Our nonendorsement was so uncharacteristic of The Observer that it surprised readers. When the newsroom learned how it came about, reporters and editors sent a petition to editor Buckner expressing concern that a newly arrived publisher had overruled our editorial board. Peter volunteered to meet with the staff. He explained that though we disagreed this time, he respected and in general supported the editorial board and had no wish to change our editorial policies.

When Felicity Barringer of The New York Times reported on the conflict, Peter told her, "I think you'll find that publishers and editorial boards will never agree on every issue. Do they compromise? I would hope so."

I told her, "We compromised by not firing the publisher. And he didn't fire us."

NCEW member Ed Williams is editor of The Charlotte Observer's editorial pages. His e-mail address is

[email protected]

Copyright MASTHEAD National Conference of Editorial Writers Spring 1999
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