Candidate interviews pose scheduling challenge.

* Don't let practical difficulties become an excuse for abandoning endorsements.

An editorial page with a vigorous commitment to endorsements is a sure sign of a newspaper that refuses to be bullied and intimidated by focus groups, that appeals to young blockheads, and that performs other morally confessed forms of journalistic populism.

While courage, independence, and forthrightness are the most important requirements in making endorsements, certain nuts-and-bolts issues shouldn't be overlooked. Indeed, failing to attend to the practical difficulties of endorsements can become an all-too-convenient excuse for curtailing or abandoning them altogether.

I have found that scheduling candidate interviews marks the biggest hurdle in the endorsement process at a small newspaper such as mine. I am responsible for all aspects of the editorial page including organizing meetings between the candidates and the four-member editorial board, which consists of the publisher, editor, city editor, and me. While the editor and city editor don't insist on being present for all endorsement interviews, the publisher wants to see and hear each candidate for himself and prefers that all other board members also attend.

Juggling the schedule of candidates and four newsroom executives at what is a hectic time for all represents a daunting challenge. Last year, I tried to simplify the scheduling. Frankly, it proved to be less than a complete success, but it offered some grounds for hope for success in the future.

The idea was to piggyback many of the endorsement interviews onto televised debates that I was already organizing with the help of the local public television station. The debates involved legislative candidates.

The editorial board members were supposed to gather in a room off to the side of the studio, where we would meet separately with each candidate for up to a half hour before or after the debate.

It seemed like a swell idea on paper, something that should have been advantageous for the candidates and the editorial board. As it turned out, scheduling conflicts prevented all but one of the endorsement interviews from being held on the same night as the debate.

Despite the limited results, I remain convinced the idea is fundamentally sound. During the next campaign season, I plan to ask board members to attend public debates and forums on their own, as many as necessary for reaching a decision. By doing so, I hope we can dispense with the need for scheduling interviews, except for those candidates and campaigns posing questions that can't be resolved in any other way. In this way, I believe board members can acquire much of the same information we now obtain in endorsement interviews but at a less hectic pace.

I hope this helps other editors, especially in smaller shops, as they search for ways to manage the endorsement process in addition to their normal duties at election time.

NCEW member Joe Beck is editorial page editor of The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale.