What are Newspapers Good For?

The 2016 general election year will go down in history as the Year of the Newspaper Dump! What do I mean by this? It is interesting how many major and minor daily newspapers in our country endorsed Hillary Clinton. The list stands at about 243 including our local San Antonio Express-News.

Most of the papers backing Clinton have normally leaned to liberal side of politics. These include of course the New York Times and the Washington Post. This year a few conservative types such as The Arizona Republic, The Dallas Morning News, and The Cincinnati Enquirer threw their weight behind Clinton.

In my opinion, the reason behind their decisions probably had to do with an outsider (Donald Trump) running against a lifetime politician (Hillary Clinton). We saw a business executive pushing for change in Washington D.C. and our country versus a political hound dog expressing business as usual for all.

Only 20 daily newspapers came out with a direct endorsement of Donald Trump. Some lesser-known newspapers such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the New York Observer gave Trump their OK. Maybe Vegas knew better! Maybe having a man like Trump running our nation made more sense than a career politician did.

With hindsight, we know that endorsements mean very little to the voting public. The Silent Majority kept up with politics using the Internet. We read for ourselves about all the corruption found in one candidate’s camp. We saw hostility shown Donald Trump by the intolerant Left. We witnessed the campaign that the newspapers did NOT report. In the end, Hillary was the predicted candidate of most newspapers!