Kristy Totten: Welcome to “San Diego News Fix: The Backstory,” where we give you a behind-the-scenes look into our newsroom and how decisions are made.
The 2022 general election takes place Nov. 8, and voting starts a month before. To help you prepare, The San Diego Union-Tribune Opinion section has created a voter guide, endorsement guide and more. Today, we’re joined by editor and publisher Jeff Light, managing editor Lora Cicalo and Opinion and editorial director Matthew T. Hall.
Jeff Light: Thank you, Kristy, and thank you, Matt, for coming on. I know this is a super busy time of year for you, so let’s just start at 30,000 feet: You have worked as a journalist in San Diego for decades now. You’ve covered City Hall, you’ve been a columnist, and now you run the Opinion group at the Union-Tribune. So, you’ve got a pretty long background looking at politics in San Diego. Why don’t you just give us a bit of an overview of this year before we get into these journalistic issues. What are the big races and what should readers be watching?
Matthew T. Hall: Great question. We’ve been in the thick of the election it feels like for a couple of months now, and most people haven’t even seen their ballots yet, so this is not top of mind for them, but they will be getting them around Oct. 10 – that week – and then will be forced to pay attention by the crush of campaign ads they will see on their television, if they haven’t already, and getting stuff in the mail.
I think the big race – obviously, it’s not a presidential election, so, take that off the top – but the governor’s race is on the ballot, and I think, last time I checked, Gov. Newsom is running against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – which is not what voters will be asked to vote on, but I think it shows that the governor thinks he has the election in the bag. And, as is always the case in California, Democrats have an edge because of party registration, fundraising and some of the failings of the Republican Party, ala it being tied to Donald Trump.
But there are some really interesting races. The attorney general is the second-most-important seat, as many see it, in the state of California. And there you have a Democratic incumbent – Rob Bonta – being challenged by a Republican lawyer from Los Angeles, Nathan Hochman. So, that’s an interesting race to watch.
And locally, there are a lot of interesting races, starting with the sheriff’s race. We’ve all been focused on the number of deaths at San Diego County jails, and this election, hopefully, will go a long way toward putting some policies, procedures and people in place to stop inmates from dying, one hopes. And there are other problems at that agency, so that’s something to watch. The mayor of Chula Vista is also a really interesting race – a Democrat and Republican there vying to take the helm of a city that’s really poised to do some incredible things development-wise and has some of the same problems that you’re seeing in other major cities locally and around the state, such as homelessness and other issues. I would say that those are the big races that are on people’s radar, but there’s a ton. We’re making 53 endorsements, so, the ballot will be long and a lot of work for us and for voters.
Jeff Light: And we haven’t even mentioned the people’s ordinance.
Matthew T. Hall: That’s another big one. Yes, there are seven state propositions and five local ballot measures, one of which is deciding whether there should be a fee imposed on trash collection for single-family homes in San Diego, which has not had that for more than 100 years.
Jeff Light: Yes, a fascinating issue in its own right.
OK, so there’s all this going on. Maybe just tell us briefly, what are the Union-Tribune’s offerings to help people navigate the work out of your group?
Matthew T. Hall: Yes, there’s a ton, and a lot of it is already on there. We’re still in the thick of it, but you can go to our election guide and see all of our Q&A’s with the candidates, all of our pro-and-con commentaries on these ballot measures. So, if you’re looking to hear directly from the candidates, you can see all of those written Q&A’s and those commentaries. You can also see all of the video interviews that we’ve done with some pretty high-profile candidates, starting with congressional candidates and the state constitutional offices, and later we’ll be adding other interviews, including some in-person forums for sheriff, Chula Vista mayor, City Council races in San Diego.
Lastly – and this is really what distinguishes us from the newsroom – beyond those interviews, we’re also posting an endorsements page, where you will see the upshot of all of these interviews and information-gathering that the editorial board does, and then the discussions we have about who our recommendations for these offices should be. And I imagine that readers would like to be a bug on the wall for some of those discussions. They can be very long and kind of complicated in some of these races, because they’re not easy decisions to make and we take this responsibility seriously, but ultimately, what viewers then are left with is not necessarily those discussions, but everything else that we have taken upon ourselves in the process.
Jeff Light: Yes, and before we get to that actual endorsement piece, I just want to dwell for a minute on this period of discovery, where, as an Opinion group, you’ve done something that’s a little bit different and I think really important, which is finding the key people on a story – the stakeholders on a story – interviewing them through questioning and presenting that material to the community. So, on these races, there are a couple of key candidates, we get to see both of them answering questions, and to that point, it’s really the fundamentals of journalism. That’s exactly what a reporter does on any story is to find the qualified sources, to query them, and then to present their perspectives together in a cogent way within a proper context.
So, Lora Cicalo, I just wanted to get your perspective – as the managing editor – of this sort of election guide work that Matt’s group is doing. This, to me, looks exactly like what the election guide of the newsroom would be in past generations.
Lora Cicalo: Right. I think in most ways it is. And, as you mentioned, their approach is a journalistic approach, and it’s the same approach that reporters have taken in the past when we’ve done election guides as a newsroom product and offering – asking those questions, having those interviews, presenting that to readers and potential voters for them to make their own decision is exactly what the Opinion team has been doing. And I think that is really important. The distinction, obviously, comes where the newsroom then would not take that next step and offer to voters an opinion of what they should do when it comes time to cast their vote.
Jeff Light: A pretty important distinction and a very interesting one, because once that last piece of the chain is in place – an endorsement – then, what you’ve described, Matt – this open-minded and intellectually-honest engagement with the candidates, which clearly is what I see happening – once an endorsement is made, it seems different. Like, “Well, you all were for this guy!” So was it all really even-handed and fair? Or was it all a partisan exercise?
So, let’s talk for a minute about how and why you make the endorsements. And I guess let’s start with the why. Why endorse at all, given that it always brings forward the very argument that I just made, “Oh, well, you’re posing as fair-minded journalists, but, really, you’re an advocate.”
Matthew T. Hall: You know, we get people challenging us all the time on just that question: Why do you? Our approach has always been not a partisan approach. We and I don’t care what your party is. We care about the principles that you espouse and the background that you have and the kind of honesty and integrity you approach the job with. And so during those discussions, we try to get a sense of that. And as we’re doing that, before we start that process, we try to explain to people why we’re doing it, the importance of it.
Look, everyone’s super busy – I’m not talking about us here; I’m talking about people who are going through their lives and trying to get by day to day, and then all of a sudden this thing happens called an election, where people will be chosen to make decisions on their behalf, and, so, you hope that people will be as informed as possible. That’s why we see our role not just of interviewing (the candidates), but then of also – because we’re opinion journalists – suggesting this as someone for people to consider.
This is not a mandatory thing; we’re not looking at a way to shut down the conversation. We’re just saying, as you consider other pieces of information in your voting process, also look at ours. Then we try to explain in those endorsements why one candidate has an edge over another, why one candidate might not be up to the task, why one candidate clearly is, or why it’s a close call and voters really have their work cut out for them.
Again, I just look at that as one piece of information. And the reason we do it – beyond the need for it – is we have the time. It, literally, is our job to talk to these folks. So, we’re able to not only spend time talking to them, reading our newspaper’s coverage, other outlets’ reporting, and then, because we are versed in these issues – and try to be not necessarily subject-matter experts, but at least we have subject-matter experts on speed dial – where we can try to get to the bottom of really complex things. I think that’s why opinion journalism, in a nutshell, is so important, because journalists, in the end, do important work but they, because of the nature of journalism, need to let people decide, whereas we, then, take that next step and say, “Here, based on our research, is our thinking, which we have tried to explain to the best of our ability, why this person might be elevated over another.”
Jeff Light: Right. Maybe the difference between reading the menu at the restaurant and reading the restaurant review. Two different presentations of the information.
Kristy Totten: If I could just add to that, the access is really extraordinary. Matt, you’re framing it as “We’re doing this on the public’s behalf,” which is absolutely true, but who from the public gets to meet with every single candidate, and in every single race (meet with) people on either side of the proposition? It’s because we have that access, which I think is a real privilege. Wouldn’t you want to hear from the people who get to talk to all the people that are involved in this?
We’re not coming at this in a partisan way. We are really being open-minded, trying to understand the issues, trying to understand the candidates, and we have this perspective. I think, of course, it should be shared. And again, when we do the endorsements, we explain our thinking, we explain our reasoning, and so, whether or not you agree with our view, you understand our view and what we’re putting into it.
Jeff Light: Now, in every campaign, though, I think one thing we see is that it’s an all-out effort for victory by all the candidates who are in this because of their earnest belief that they will bring the greatest public good. So, as the campaign gets down to the final days, you see all sorts of desperate acts in the name of advancing the greater good, which is getting me, Candidate A, elected. And so everything is weaponized in those campaigns. I think I’ve seen that in previous campaigns where the process that you described, Kristy, is not the process that the unendorsed candidate is going to describe to the community as they run against “the machine” at the Union-Tribune. What do you make of all that, Matt? You’re drawn in to the partisan politics every year, your name.
Matthew T. Hall: Yes, sometimes we – and I – become part of the story. People, as is their right and their privilege, they’re able to criticize us, to compliment us, to say, “This is what makes sense and what is absolute trash in this editorial or endorsement,” and that’s just part of the process. Again, to me, the whole thing is a conversation. It’s not prescriptive. That’s why we go to great lengths to explain not only why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, but when we’re doing it.
Twenty years ago, it was, “We do our work behind closed doors, and then we come down from the mountain with our 10 Commandment-like endorsements.” Basically, “trust us” was the end of the conversation there between the journalists and the community. Now, we’re trying to explain our thinking, and people can choose for themselves whether they trust us or not, and, hopefully they do, because we are, literally, bearing the whole entire process or very much of it. And, to your question, that’s just part of it. People will sometimes campaign, seize on us and either lift a sentence that they like from endorsement we gave them and put it on a TV ad or they’ll complain that we were unfair to them. That’s happened before and, as I always do, I listen to them and keep having the conversation and second-guess myself, because a big part of this is second-guessing yourself.
Jeff Light: I think it’s a fascinating topic, and particularly in this era of disinformation and propaganda, which I think gets amped up as the elections get closer. So, I really applaud your transparency about what your group is doing. Maybe in summary, where can we all go again and what is it that’s available to me, as a voter, from The San Diego Union-Tribune?
Matthew T. Hall: Right now, you have Q&A’s with all the congressional candidates and all of the state constitutional candidates. We’re getting to the point where we will soon publish school board candidates in San Diego, City Council candidates in San Diego and all the county races. So, again, 53 races that we’re endorsing in and before we’re endorsing, we’re sharing the interviews, all of which you can find on our website. The election guide is the one that will take you to all the other pages that we have and where you can also see videos and, if you’re interested, read up on our endorsements.
