U-T San Diego - Editorial Views

Editorial Views

Doug Manchester, the new publisher of the U-T, and his partner, John Lynch, were open about their desire to use the newspaper to "promote their agenda of downtown development and politically conservative causes", with Lynch stating on KPBS radio that he and Manchester "wanted to be cheerleaders for all that is good in San Diego." This has resulted in criticism from journalism professors and other newspaper editors, who indicate concerns about news coverage on topics such as the military and business may not be covered. Dean Nelson, director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University, argued, "Now if you're saying we're going to be the cheerleaders of the military, why would you report on this guy that's taking bribes?... Where's the cheerleading there?" a reference to the Union-Tribune's Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal.

In September 2012, Investigative Newsource reporter Brooke Williams obtained articles that claimed Lynch "threatened" Port Commissioner Scott Peters, who was running for Congress, "with a newspaper campaign to dismantle the Unified Port of San Diego." In e-mails obtained by Williams, Lynch was quoted as indicating that if the Dole Food Company obtained a long term contract, that the Port's independence governance would be questioned in editorial coverage. Williams said the effort showed "the extent to which the newspaper's new owners will go to push their vision for a football stadium on the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal,"

In addition, a poll was taken by the U-T concerning the mayoral race but which excluded "Employees of a newspaper, television / radio station, marketing / public opinion research company or the city of San Diego—or who live with someone employed in one of those fields." This poll showed that mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio polled significantly higher than other polls which did not exclude those respondents, which political researchers charged introduced bias into the poll.