A general election endorsement is probably the most important editorial that a newspaper can publish – and almost certainly the longest too.
Whether a paper’s general election leader ever affects the outcome of an election is pretty doubtful. Some have also raised doubts about whether an endorsement is an appropriate intervention, especially in the digital era. Another area of enduring debate is whether a newspaper should offer an endorsement in elections in other countries – the Guardian has done this for many years in the case of the US, and more recently Australia, partly in reflection of the digital editions we now produce there but also because the world of politics has always been connected.
These discussions will always take place, yet endorsement leaders survive, as editorials also do more generally, because they help to clarify a range of views at a particular time in history. I like to think of leaders as the tent pole that holds up the marquee under which other views cluster, compete and come and go.
By and large, newspapers tend to follow their readers rather than seeking to lead them. Yet an election offers a unique platform for a newspaper to channel its own history and ethos into a major political judgment, normally in the final week of the campaign, about what it thinks is the best course for the country – and 2017 is no exception.
In the case of the Guardian, I have always found it a very collegiate process, and a search for consensus. There is very little anger - though I wasn’t here in 1983 when the leader writers were deeply divided between Labour and the Social Democrats. My overwhelming feeling is that the process is always refreshing, a good opportunity to take time to test ideas and remind ourselves of the essential values of independence, non-partisanship, accuracy, balance and fairness, to which one always aspires but which one doesn’t always achieve in the daily rush of producing the column.
In most newspapers, the task of writing the election leader rests firmly in the hands of the editor. In my experience, editors are always conscious – certainly at the Guardian – of the mantle of the paper’s history around their shoulders. The editor will probably consult senior colleagues, including the leader writers and the political editor. On some papers – but this doesn’t apply on the Guardian because of our unique ownership structure, with editorial independence ensured by the Scott Trust – he or she might even consult the owner too. But the decision about who to support is taken at the top and, historically, the leader is written by the editor.
Most editors know instinctively how much latitude they possess to vary the endorsement. An editor of the Daily Mail knows that Mail readers would be outraged by an endorsement of Labour. A Guardian editor knows that an endorsement of the Conservatives would be explosive too. There are very few national newspapers whose readership’s political leanings change dramatically from decade to decade. The big exception to this in the UK is the Sun, whose readers have moved from Tory to Labour and back again in the past 30 years – and have been followed by the Sun’s election endorsement.
In the past, the Guardian had the same top down process. Guardian editors from CP Scott onwards would consult a few colleagues and then pen the leader themselves. When I was first a leader writer on the Guardian in the 1980s, that is what happened. A few of us made suggestions about changes, which were either incorporated or not by the editor, and the leader duly appeared.
That has changed in recent years. Now, the consultation process has widened, with all editorial staff invited to a general meeting to put their views forward.
And the editor no longer always writes the leader, though they still have the final word. The political leader writer – it was me from 1997 through to 2015 – writes a draft to order, which is then shared with the other leader writers and some senior staff, before being honed for final publication.
Most of the time, it is fairly obvious where the Guardian will come down. From at least 1918 until the present day, the paper has been an independent non-partisan voice of the liberal internationalist centre left. Having been a strong supporter of the Liberal party in the 19th century, the Manchester Guardian warmed to the Labour party in the 20th, while never losing its Liberal connections. Most of the discussion is about tone, balance and caveats.
Almost all its election leaders of the postwar era have endorsed either Labour or the Liberals, and frequently a combination of the two. The only exception to that was in 1951, when the collapse of both the Labour government and the Liberal party – and spurred by the then editor AP Wadsworth’s distaste for Labour’s health minister Aneurin Bevan – produced an endorsement of Churchill’s Tories. The Guardian’s endorsement of the Liberal Democrats in 2010 remains almost as controversial, even though it was carefully hedged with the usual advice to back Labour where the Lib Dems could not win.
This week a special meeting of the leader writers was held with the editor. The internal consultation meeting with editorial staff also took place. The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, said of the event, “It was a terrific meeting, brilliantly chaired by chief leader writer Randeep Ramesh: a respectful conversation with many interesting ideas debated, demonstrating a real breadth of knowledge and perspectives. Twenty seven people spoke in the hour we had, of whom 14 were women, with a strong diversity of voices across race and age as well.”
