Let video interviews help you make primary election decisions

One of the unintended consequences of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdowns was a material change in the way our Editorial Board conducts interviews with candidates and — for the better, as it turns out — the way you can follow these interviews.

Whereas the meetings once were conducted almost exclusively in-person with candidates at Daily Herald offices, we were forced by necessity to begin doing them via Zoom when the COVID crisis emerged in March 2020.

At the time, our staff members — like employees at most other businesses — were sent home to work remotely until the crisis blew over. We expected the expulsion to last a couple weeks, maybe a month. Six years later, here we are at our home PCs, doing most of our editing and much of our reporting on computer screens. Economics and practicality have combined to transform the modern-day newsroom, and as a result how our Editorial Board interviews candidates for public office.

Despite the practical advantages of the technology approach, I am not a big fan of the change. There was something warmer and more telling about the interactions we had with candidates when they shook our hands, looked into our eyes (or didn’t) and sat across from us at a table answering questions and declaring their positions. The “Brady Bunch”-style gatherings we now host online seem cold and stiff by comparison, more like an officious, formal interrogation than a comfortable, informative discussion.

But from your vantage point as a viewer and voter, the new process offers some distinct advantages. For one, because candidates don’t have to travel any distance to meet at our office, interviews can be scheduled more conveniently, making it easier and more comfortable for them to participate and enabling them to participate in more events that connect them with voters. And more than that, the video interviews enable you to connect with the candidates more directly and insightfully.

Our reporters still write stories about the interviews, just as before. But now, you also can go online and watch for yourself, providing the opportunity to see and hear the candidates unfiltered and in depth. You can gauge their tone of voice and watch their body language. You have a greater feel for the context of the points they make, and can listen to their positions expressed in the candidates’ own words.

There are caveats, of course, but even these can often accrue to your advantage. The programs are unscripted and both in questions asked and answers given can take longer to understand than from a neatly edited and refined print story. And, on occasion, some candidates take advantage of the distance afforded by video-conference to engage in self-indulgent performances ranging from outrage to satire, or otherwise behave in ways they never would in an in-person office setting. Even then, however, their actions help emphasize the seriousness of their campaigns, their qualifications to serve - or their lack of all of the above.

So, as our reporting and endorsements begin ramping up in these final weeks of the Spring 2026 midterm primaries, you will see videos linked in the body of stories about various races at www.dailyherald.com. Click and take a few minutes to watch. You’ll gain an extra level of awareness about the candidates — and of confidence in the decision you make about whom to support.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. The Chicago Writer’s Association cited his book “To Nudge The World” as a 2025 Book of the Year, and it is available at eckhartzpress.com.