By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
APRIL 12, 2024 | Readers who are new to GwinnettForum in the past 18 months may not know of a key issue coming on April 23.
That will be the date when GwinnettForum endorses candidates in the party primaries, and in non-partisan races for the school board and local judgeship races.
At present we are continuing to interview candidates for these positions, seeking a 30-minute interview, so that GwinnettForum can determine which candidate it thinks is best for each of these slots.
Longtime readers may remember that GwinnettForum first began this service back in 2008. What caused it was the decision by the publishers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to discontinue endorsing candidates. Previously they had done an admirable job of endorsing candidates in key Metro Atlanta counties down to the school board and county commission level. It was a big job, and candidates would be lined up awaiting to be interviewed one-on-one by staff members. If I remember correctly, they might endorse any one year in 300 or more races for statewide, legislative and local offices.
But when their decision came to eliminate this service, it made me mad. After all, I feel it is a newspaper’s duty to endorse candidates, since often it knows much more about some of the candidates that you can easily flat-out print.
After about a week of being mad about it, an idea hit me: “Wait a minute. Many people consider GwinnettForum as something like a newspaper! Maybe GwinnettForum can endorse!”
That first year we talked to 69 candidates, and made our endorsements in both the primary and general election. We have endorsed candidates in every election since 2008, and will again this year. Last year, with statewide offices open, we spoke with 147 candidates. So far, we are approaching 50 this year.
In the 30 minutes we spend with candidates, we ask a lot of demographic questions, where they are from … .went to school…age…family…church…job…hobbies…etc. We then let them talk about what they think is important in the race, and why they are running for office.
You can learn a lot in 30 minutes this way. And you form opinions, which are quite subjective. But after all, often you vote subjectively, too.
From my beginning of publishing a newspaper, when I was in a new town for three weeks, I endorsed a candidate for governor I did not know. But I knew his opponent, a former Georgia governor, and didn’t like his politics.
Time the newspaper came out that week, an older woman bounded into our office, pounding the counter, and wanted to see the editor. “You ain’t got no right to tell me how to vote!” she shouted. And we went around for a while, with me finally starting to say, “Let’s solve it this way. Write me a letter saying how you will vote….” She cut me off immediately: “You won’t print my letter.” I assured her I would, which I of course, I should, and did.
That turned out to be one of the best things I did in that new town. For she was the town gossip, so she went around telling everyone how how “wonderful” I was, since I printed her letter. That was a great way for me to get known in my new hometown. Who could have written a better scenario?
Later on, at work with the Gwinnett Daily News, and later the AJC, we always endorsed.
Tell your friends of the upcoming endorsements by GwinnettForum, and invite them to subscribe (it’s no cost) at www.gwinnettforum.com.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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