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I think it important to hear from all the candidates, is there a way you could suspend the regular Sunday columns for a while, and run candidate's columns? It would be good if you could limit the length of their submissions, perhaps running two short ones each Sunday?
This is, as they all are, a very important election, and it's vital to the democratic process that we make up our own minds about the candidates. Hearing from them directly would further this aim.
Yes, an informed electorate is critical...and not even about the candidates, but the issues. I like it when Newspapers print opinion, ideas and from more than just the two "front runners" from the major parties. Yes, in fact come of the independent "fringe" ideas are the best.....so I would lean toward being as inclusive as possible..... with an eye toward informed opinion and new ideas. (yea, when we talk candidates, negative critique and name calling come right to mind....but I suppose we have to take the bad with the good too)
Because of the space limitations - I would recommend The Telegraph placing a line, indicating the Op Ed subject, author and where a reader could view it On-line for full text.
In this way, The Telegraph would be fulfilling its important role in informing citizens of critical views of all candidates who request Op Ed space, while not clogging its printed pages.
Nick ,
I agree for those who don't get to see the candidate in person, then the opinion columns are a way to allow the readewr tro be informed. You shoud reserve ther right however to eliiminate any personal attacks.
I feel the "ads" should be allowed to be printed, no matter how biased they may be. My only concern, would
that they be identified as from a candidate or one of their surrogates.
Nick
Istongly oppose cancelling any current op-ed material to make room for candidate letters. Candidates are adequately funded to fillour mailboxes and the air waves with their statements. Any prospective voter interested in learning of a candidate's pitch jas only to read his own incoming mail
Furthermore your excellent fact checking columns already expose the candidates positions on many important issues should readers not have encountered them elsewhere
It strikes me as a subversion of basic editorial independence norms toprovide candidates free space on your editorial pages. Let them buy their space in the advertising section.
That said oit may be OK to publish candidates brief and specific objections to any editorial criticism of them the Telegraph may have published
I think these articles should be published provided they contain the position and plans of the candidates with regard to specific issues. You should reserve the right to reject any submital that is just more of the same negative attacks on their opponents. We get enough of that through their ads and public statements. I would make space by dropping the rotating local columnists which sometimes are themselves partisan political opinions. For example I thought it highly inappropriate for the "reader advocate" to twice use that space to make partisan attacks on one of the presidential candidates.
The Editorial staff of the Telegraph has a liberal leftist bent that colors all of the stories that run in the paper. Who will monitor the staff of the paper to insure they are not slanting coverage of the candidates? Case in point: For almost two weeks now it has been in the news that John Edwards has been having an affair on his wife who has cancer. The story first broke while Obama was on his so called earth shattering worldwide tour. To protect Obama and the democratic party the Telegraph has refused to cover this. This is front page news. Rest assured if Edwards had been a republican the paper would have tarred and feathered him and made this an ongoing major story. Liberals are just like alchoholics-they both deny they have a problem. The bottom line in all this-yes it is ok to run editorials from both the candidates and their followers. The paper should expand the letters they print from three a day to at least fifteen. |(Like the union leader does!)
Please DON'T open Pandora's box, and run these (when you think they are worthy) in the print edition! These candidates are already covered in news stories, and I wouldn't want their pitches to voters to clog up op-ed space.
I have no objections to your running candidate/surrogate articles running online.
Do not ever consider elimnating your editorials. Do not consider eliminating ltrs to the editor. The only space I can see as optional is the cartoon space. I think these candidate articles should be linked online only. Provide the link and let the voter pursue it if there is an interest.
I would not want to remove your own editorials to read things that I can read elsewhere (candidate web pages), so I would recommend having the candidate op-eds on the online edition only. Thank you.
The only pieces I would consider worthy of print are from the candidates themselves. Interest groups and the party can buy space or use their surrogates for LTEs like they usually do. Feel free to limit the length, but part of a newspaper's job is to inform the public. Back in the good old days, newspapers used to publish entire political speeches and dedicate huge amounts of coverage to all the candidates. Sadly, MSM coverage of elections has become a joke. At least with local candidates a local paper can improve the situation. And do post them online, since fewer and fewer people read the print edition.