2019 will be a big year for Mississippi’s political future. Beginning Wednesday, the field is open for candidates to declare themselves for everything from governor to county sheriff, and it doesn’t look like there will be any shortage of people throwing their hats in the race.
Already, politics enthusiasts, campaign groups and journalists – myself included – have started pulling out our lists of prospective candidates, waiting for announcements to confirm our theories.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman will most likely run for governor. Mike Espy is a favorite for Attorney General after he failed to unseat Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in the November special election. We even have a few people in Newton County who are getting ready to run for sheriff.
With so many candidates for so many races, I have to accept it will not be possible to cover every talking point for the next year. I could try, but I’d probably pass out from exhaustion by the March 1 qualifying deadline. Plus, focusing too much on politics wouldn’t allow me to uphold my primary duty as editor: inform the residents of Newton County, something I’m sure readers and candidates would be upset to lose.
It is with that in mind I want, if I may, to lay down some simple ground rules for political coverage for the 2019 election season. The purpose of these rules isn’t to punish but to ensure fair coverage for all candidate while also upholding the news standards of The Newton County Appeal.
• I will gladly run candidacy announcements for all candidates in all races. Those stories can either be submitted, or I can write them. I will leave that up to the discretion of the individual candidates. Candidates who want me to write them will not receive an advance copy or have editing privileges. I don’t do that for news stories, and I won’t do that for political coverage.
• If any candidate holds a town hall, community meeting, debate or other event, I would be thrilled to add it to our community calendar and cover it for our readers. I will not cover publicity events such as check presentations, though I will accept submitted photos with cutlines that are relevant to Newton County.
• Candidate comments on their opponent’s policies, strengths or shortcomings will be directed to our advertising department or the recycling bin depending on the subject matter and quality of writing. If it both poorly written and irrelevant, I reserve the right to post it on my personal Twitter page. I have a year of political coverage to get through; I could use the laugh.
• The editorial staff of the Newton County Appeal is currently working on a candidate information packet, which, among other things, includes a questionnaire for all candidates to explain their goals for office, issues they plan to address and other platform-related information. I encourage all candidates to pick one up. After the qualifying deadline, I plan to use those forms to compile a booklet of all candidates for all races to be distributed to our readers.
I decided to use a form to be fair. Each candidate gets the same questions, the same amount of time to answer, the same world length, uniform coverage. Normally I abhor forms and written questions of all types, but this was the only way I could guarantee each candidate would get equal opportunity to share their view.
My guidelines may seem harsh, but with over a dozen different political races running simultaneously for the next year, it felt necessary to lay out some ground rules for the sanity of our readers and myself.
Of course, I welcome all candidates to reach out whenever there is something they’d like covered or an idea they have for a story. I’m always thrilled when people give feedback, both positive and negative, on stories, columns or posts I make. A newspaper needs an engaged community to be effective, and I can’t cover the important issues if readers don’t tell me what’s important to them. The worst thing I’ll say is no.
Thomas is the managing editor of the Appeal. He can be reached at thoward@newtoncountyappeal.com.
