EDITORIAL: Video forums help fill political news gap

You’re interested in newspaper opinion pieces.

You’re reading this one, right?

But if you sometimes feel queasy as elections approach, weary of all the political sales pitches from barkers blue, red and purple, you’re far from alone. Everyone has opinions but opinion pieces aren’t for everyone.

A slew of political opinion pieces — editorials, letters to the editor, op-ed columns, My Turn pieces — have been published over the past month or two. You’ll notice a lot more in the coming month, too, but as always, you’ll be free to cast your eyes elsewhere if your threshold is exceeded.

That’s the province of opinions, which for many voters help fill in important blanks. But in our humble view, political news rather than opinion is the air voters must breathe to make informed decisions.

Here’s some good news on the local election news front.

Saturday’s Press will contain a robust Voter Guide that challenged candidates in local races to answer important questions. The candidates’ answers are unedited, so their message comes directly from their fingertips to your eyeballs.

There’s more.

By Sunday, The Press will have posted one-on-one interviews with candidates in contested races on cdapress.com. This video approach is the brainchild of Press publisher and Hagadone Corp. Communications Division President Clint Schroeder, who collaborates with public policy committees from local Chambers of Commerce.

In this latest iteration, Beacon Health CEO Helo Hancock and Coeur d’Alene Tribe Legislative Director Tyrel Stevenson conduct question and answer sessions with the primary election candidates for sheriff, county commission and two Idaho legislative seats. If the candidates thought they could take a breather after the questions put to them for the Voter Guide, they found out quickly that wasn’t the case.

Starting Sunday, see for yourself. Go to cdapress.com and click on the Meet the Candidates tab. Combined with the Voter Guide, that’s a lot of valuable political news for local voters.

And that’s not just a matter of opinion.