And the endorsements keeping rolling in…

Generally I do a huge roundup of all the article about candidates and whatnot and throw it up on my roundup page.  But I’m feeling lazy right now, just an overall sense of “meh” about this election in general, however I did get around to updating the endorsements that have begun to roll in for the candidates.   There are not a whole lot of surprises so far, the all Democratic affiliated clubs went for Marie Gilmore for Mayor and Stewart Chen and Jim Oddie for City Council.  The Sierra Club opted to only elect to endorse Frank Matarrese.  And the Green Party for Alameda County, which has the strangest endorsement procedure, went for Trish Spencer for Mayor and Frank Matarrese for City Council.

The Alameda Journal/Oakland Tribune went for Marie Gilmore for Mayor and Jim Oddie and Frank Matarrese for City Council. But I think the only endorsement that I was actually surprised at was the one from the East Bay Express.

Now the East Bay Express is not typically known for being that kind to whoever is the sitting incumbent.  In fact often, it tends to be down right hostile in the way that only the East Bay Express can be.  Typically flying in at the last second to cover the issue from whatever may be considered the “underdog” point of view.  Which is why the East Bat Express not going for Trish Spencer must have been quite the blow to her campaign.  From the EBX:

In Alameda, we’re endorsing Mayor Marie Gilmore for reelection, because we think she’s been a good mayor who deserves another term.

Additionally, the EBX decided to back both Frank Matarrese and Jim Oddie.  Leaving Stewart Chen in the dust after endorsing him just two years ago.   Even for the Council endorsements, the EBX declared Jim Oddie the best candidate in the race and sort of damned Frank Matarrese with faint praise by indicating that he would be an “upgrade” over Stewart Chen who was a disappointment.

Special nod to the piece in the EBX about the myth of unbiased media, the EBX focused on mainstream large scale media organizations like the Chronicle, it happens locally as well:

Mainstream journalism organizations forbid their news reporters from openly supporting or opposing political candidates and issues, but that doesn’t mean that reporters and editors don’t have biases. They do, of course. But, according to media critics, because the mainstream press bans overt bias, the partiality often becomes covert — and can only be detected by examining the stories that reporters and editors choose to pursue and ignore, and the terms they use to describe candidates they like and don’t like.

“The word choice is about the only way to tell where they stand,” said Dan Froomkin, a media critic and journalist for the Intercept, who previously worked for the Washington Post. “They’ll say they don’t stand for anyone, but their words give them away.”

And it’s not even that I have a problem with people having biases. Even media type people. It’s the whole idea that anyone, any media organization can be unbiased that makes me batty. If people would just own their biases and be honest with them rather than trying to position themselves as unbiased I think coverage of issues would just be a lot more clear for consumers. This is how the EBX wraps it all up:

But some critics contend that media bias itself is not the problem. The problem is that the mainstream press adamantly maintains that it’s unbiased. As a result, mainstream news consumers often wrongly assume that they’re reading “objective” political coverage when such a thing may not exist.

The belief that objective journalism is the most trustworthy form of news reporting is still a dominant paradigm, however, and is unlikely to change any time soon. Still, the media landscape is evolving. NYU journalism professor Rosen contends that digital news consumers are increasingly skeptical about what they read, and expect journalism — whether its objective or advocacy journalism — to be more transparent.