First off, an acknowledgement that I’ve neglected this blog for the past few months. I’ll be catching up on some of the high points. But first, to jump right back to now.
This week, I hit another milestone in our new normal at the paper. It was my first time writing the election column.
Granny, essentially since time eternal, wrote her column the week of the election as a review of how she would vote. It always began with the most important caveat: she wasn’t telling anyone how to vote, only how she would. It was always almost entirely positive, even when she had plenty of (rightfully) negative things to say elsewhere. But it was a place to share her thinking on what was important to her on the ballot.
It’s the first time I’ve really publicly discussed how I feel about candidates and issues at length since j-school, and it was exhilarating, though I was nervous about it in the week leading up to publication and the day-of.
I wrote in an Instagram post about how stressful it was in journalism school to not express my opinions. I grew up at Betty Spaar’s Odessan, where everyone knew we were Democrats. I grew up writing columns about Ike Skelton and Claire McCaskill (I first became a Claire fan in eighth grade when she ran for governor). I immediately connected to the message in our principles of journalism class that we should aspire to be transparent, and to create unbiased work, not be unbiased people. Yet once we were in the school proper and working for the student-staffed news outlets the Missouri Method is based on, we weren’t allowed to express our opinions on our public social media. It was stifling.
But it also stuck with me, and I’ve kind of stuck to the shadows. I’ve written the editorial for three years or so now, but I’ll admit to being happy when people assumed Granny was writing it. There are times I’ve expressed opinions, of course, but not nearly as much as I used to. Then I needed to write a whole column on why I support who I support.
But, I went back to the reason Granny wrote her election column this way. First of all, it’s just flat out being honest with people, which I think is important. I trust people more when I know where they’re coming from, and I think others do the same. It helps me know that they' aren’t trying to pull something over on me.
There’s also the fact that I feel like I have something to add to the discussion. The column doesn’t just say how I’m voting, but why. The idea that to be a good journalist you should be an opinionless, animatronic being rather than a human with personal insight and inner morals is a weapon that’s been used against journalists. Giving in to it won’t suddenly make the people calling newspaper #FakeNews find us more credible. As journalists, we pay close attention to what we’re covering, know more than we’re able to write in most cases, and know how issues link together into a broader picture. In many cases we have something to add.
In having the discussion this way, I think it takes some of the heat out of the conversation. I see people saying all the time that any opinion will make half of everyone mad, but the way the election column has always been written isn’t meant to put anyone on the defensive. I know many of my readers will vote differently than I will, and may disagree with what I say in the column. But all I’m asking of them is to respect my opinion. I tend to back away from the word “should” in most cases in life, and that’s one of the reasons I really gravitate toward sharing my opinions but not telling others how to vote. The only thing people should do is vote.
Finally, the column is expression, and that’s rewarding in and of itself. I like the way we do it here, where it’s personal. Voting is personal.
I hope that if you are able, you do so tomorrow.