I’ve never been a big fan of newspapers endorsing candidates.

I know many of my peers in the journalistic community would disagree with me.

Endorsements are one of the ways newspapers show leadership in their community and the nation, they say. It provides readers thoughtful, reasoned opinions from an unprejudiced source to help them make their decisions at the ballot box, they say.

Perhaps.

But, especially in these murky times, when facts themselves are called biased, newspaper endorsements just further muddy the waters.

Readers — and, often, the candidates themselves — just can’t separate the endorsement of the editorial board from the objective work of the reporters. I experienced it more than once as a reporter, trying to cover a candidate who wasn’t endorsed and therefore wasn’t prone to cooperate with a reporter from the paper they felt had snubbed them.

Difficult, to say the least.

Readers perceive the newspapers’ position as that of the reporter, though that is an inaccurate perception.

Editorial boards are typically made up of high-level editors and executives at the newspaper, and occasionally include members of the community (here at The News, the editorial board is me and Editor/Publisher Bill Speer). Reporters may sit in on editorial boards’ interviews with candidates, to be able to report what the candidates say, but reporters do not participate in the editorial boards’ deliberations or voting.

The editorial board’s position does not direct the newsroom’s coverage. In fact, it’s usually the other way around, the facts uncovered by reporters helping editorial boards craft their opinions.

The saga of Michael Bloomberg’s relationship with the New York Times illustrates the point.

According to Politico (full story here: https://tinyurl.com/vg9zpcv), the Times’ editorial board repeatedly endorsed Bloomberg’s mayoral candidacy in New York, even after Times reporters wrote stories on the damning nationwide criticism of the stop-and-frisk policies of Bloomberg’s New York City Police Department.

The Times editorial board endorsed Bloomberg’s decision to extend mayoral term limits for himself, only to reinstate them for his successor. But Times columnists slammed the decision.

The Gray Lady’s editorial board and its news coverage often took different paths, as happens at newspapers all around the country.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg backed out of an interview with the Times editorial board in December, shortly after he announced his candidacy, according to Politico. The candidate “did not yet have positions on enough issues,” Politico quoted the Times as saying.

This week, the Times ed board made a decision that not only muddied the political waters but polluted them, sullied them, flushed them and re-flushed them: It decided to endorse two candidates.

The Times endorsed both Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar for the Democratic presidential nomination, which is essentially an endorsement of “somebody, please God, beat Donald Trump.” Warren represents the new liberal/progressive wing of the party, while Klobuchar is more moderate, and the Times’ dual endorsement seems to say, “We don’t care which way you go, Democrats, as long as you put someone new in the White House.”

(See the Times’ story on its ed board endorsements here: https://tinyurl.com/ua5qsml).

Good luck to any Times reporter at a rally for Trump, Warren, or Klobuchar.

Newspapers ought to write editorials and show leadership in their communities. They ought to highlight successes and call out wrongs, encourage their readers to act, and argue for their communities to get fair and equal support from the powers that be.

Here at The News, for example, we’ve recently congratulated a Besser Elementary School student for inspiring a family friend to donate to the Huron Humane Society, called out the scoundrels who dump trash at recycling stations, and encouraged residents to lend their voice to the city’s planning for the future of Mich-e-ke-wis Park.

But, in these hyper-partisan times, when our leaders consistently lower the public’s trust in the journalists trying to hold those leaders accountable, political endorsements only give more ammunition to our haters.

It might be time for that tradition to end.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-358-5686 or jhinkley@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley.