By Tim Redmond
So, the folks at sfist posted an item earlier today about the door-hangers with the Guardian logo and the Guardian slate on them. Sfist got it wrong, then apologized, but I want to clear up any confusion here:
The Guardian doesn’t do slate cards.
We do endorsements, based on our own independent analysis of what’s best for the city, the state and the country. When we’re done, some of the candidates inevitably decide to quote from our endorsements or use our headlines or our logo to promote their campaigns. That’s fine with me — political campaigns use newspaper quotes, headlines and logos all the time. Even if it wasn’t fine with me, I don’t think there’s anything we could do to stop it.
A few years ago, some of the progressive campaigns got together and decided to reprint the entire list of Guardian endorsements as a door hanger “slate card.” Again: Fine with me. Again: Nothing I could do if it wasn’t. Once or twice since then, as a matter of courtesy, the campaigns have called to let me know what they’re doing. I always say the same thing: Please, out of courtesy, make it clear that the card you produce is neither paid for by nor produced by the Bay Guardian. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
In this case, I guess, there was some confusion, leading some to wonder if we “sold” our endorsements. We take our endorsments more seriously than anything else we do; just ask anyone who’s been through the process or anyone who’s ever worked here. We don’t control what individual campaigns do with our endorsements. But we aren’t involved, make no money off it, don’t control content, don’t decide where the doorhangers go and many times (like this year) didn’t even know it was happening.
Hope that clears things up.