How WW’s Newsroom Reached Some Difficult Endorsement Decisions

Who makes these choices? And how? WW news editor Aaron Mesh answers.

Portland City Hall. (Brian Brose)

Endorsement season is overwhelming, right? My kid went to open up a Daniel Tiger video on YouTube and an aggressively terrifying Christine Drazan attack ad threatening all Oregonians’ right to abortion blasted in his face.

Yes, I get how ads work (and also facts), but this is a particularly toxic fuckscape of a year. Like, can we chill? The public is so divided, and so weirdly angry, but the stakes are only really high for some of us, particularly the houseless, the working poor, women, LGBTQ, parents, elderly and infirm, anyone making less than $200,000 a year, and every single brick downtown.

Did I miss anyone? Is that everybody? If you need a panacea, I suggest visiting the alien autopsy at the Peculiarium as a reminder that things could be worse. We could be being flayed open in outer space by hostile alien overlords.

Vote Healthy 2022 is WW’s official endorsement issue. Over the past month, Willamette Week’s news team conducted interviews with candidates seeking the paper’s endorsement. They examined the new measures we’d see on the ballot and gave their arguments for or against them. Now, it’s up to Portland voters to consider—or not—the opinions of our city’s dedicated news writers before ultimately coming to their own informed conclusions about what choices best represent the places they live.

News editor Aaron Mesh will join me to unpack some of the more controversial endorsements of WW’s news team and give us an insider perspective on the entire endorsement process.

Listen on Spotify.

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Brianna Wheeler

Brianna Wheeler is an essayist, illustrator, biological woman/psychological bruh holding it down in NE Portland. Equal parts black and proud and white and awkward.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.

Help us dig deeper.