democracy dies in -- lol sorry, i can't
on the washington post's non-endorsement
Do you remember when, back in January 2020, The New York Times’ Editorial Board decided to endorse both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren for Democratic nominee, a famously two-can-win-this-game situation? I thought that would be the worst endorsement I'd see in this particularly mind-numbing era of American politics. But I know now that was just goofy, because the worst endorsement I've ever seen actually comes from The Washington Post, and it doesn't exist.
Yesterday, the Post announced that for the first time since 1988, it would not endorse a candidate for the presidential election, a practice it plans to adopt for future elections, as well.1 In his note, publisher and CEO William Lewis quoted the paper's 1960 and 1972 Editorial Boards and added:
We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions — whom to vote for as the next president.
[...]
Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent.
And that is what we are and will be. (The Washington Post)
(Not "the capital city of the most important country in the world" ... Aaron Sorkin, I have a new character for you!!)
The endorsement was subject to the owner's final approval — standard operating procedure, coming from a time when newspapers were not owned by billionaires whose other companies regularly bid for government contracts and lobbied for lower corporate taxes. As reported by the Post itself, "[a]n endorsement of Harris had been drafted by Post editorial page staffers," and "[t]he decision to no longer publish presidential endorsements was made by The Post’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos."
In response to the non-endorsement, several Post columnists have publicly decried the decision, thousands of readers have cancelled their subscriptions, and the paper's guild shared the following message:
Now, there are some naïve souls out there claiming that the Post made this choice because of Kamala Harris's refusal to budge from Biden's staunch support for Israel. I applaud you, but if I had an inkling that was really the case, I wouldn't be writing this essay — I'd be off buying a bridge somewhere. There are, however, no indications of that claim's proximity to the truth, and it is very hard for me to believe that somehow, it was Bezos's progressivism that led to this institutional shift from the Post. Like, I need us to think for a minute.
It's not that an endorsement eleven days out from the election, from a paper that adopted the (cringey, I'm sorry to say, especially in retrospect) "Democracy Dies in Darkness" slogan during Donald Trump's presidency, would have moved the needle when it came to voting. Much like the Times' endorsement of Harris, the Post's wouldn't have surprised anyone, and as such it is unlikely to have changed the hearts and minds of American voters.
But a newspaper's endorsement doesn't usually trade in influence, does it? It is an acknowledgment of its own reporting, a refusal to see the news in a vacuum, and a recognition that the press is not a neutral observer of society, but an active participant in the upkeep of democracy.
In his publisher's note, Lewis cites the paper's wish to remain "independent" as one of the major justifications for its non-endorsement. Independent from whom and what, though? Not from Bezos, and apparently not from the fear that a future Trump presidency might retaliate against a newspaper [owner] that published an unfavorable endorsement.
The independence a media company is supposed to seek is from the forces who'd prefer the news be un- or underreported — chiefly among them, the government and large corporations. It is what makes the press valuable and indispensable to a population that, on its own, possesses limited access to the truth. Using "independent" as to mean non-participatory is a farce; a bastardization of the fourth estate's role.
This decision from the Post's ownership is part of what I see as a growing belief within some of mainstream media that argues it is not only possible but indeed, preferable, to withhold one's moral judgment when telling the news. In other words, that journalistic objectivity and ethics require neutrality and amorality so as not to unduly influence the electorate. Really?
I'm reminded of an opinion Wesley Lowery wrote for the Times in June 2020, in which he said:
For years, I’ve been among a chorus of mainstream journalists who have called for our industry to abandon the appearance of objectivity as the aspirational journalistic standard, and for reporters instead to focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts. (The New York Times)
And of a piece by Masha Gessen for The New Yorker, a few days after Lowery's:
Objectivity in journalism came to mean presenting both sides of an argument from a position of neutrality. But not every argument has two sides: some have more, and some statements should not be the subject of argument. There cannot be arguments about facts. (The New Yorker)
The notion that a newspaper can run headlines like "Trump drops the pretense, labels Jan. 6 insurrectionists 'we,'" "Elon Musk's legally problematic $1 million voter giveaway," "Rep. Andy Harris suggests North Carolina lawmakers award electors to Trump," and "Trump compares undocumented migrants to trash at insult-fueled rallies" and a few days later, follow-up with a non-endorsement strongly suggests that the Post's goal is not heightened ethics or moral clarity, but the mere appearance, as Lowery wrote, of objectivity, of a world in which last week's news do not impact today's opinion.
It is an insult to readers for Post ownership to feign pursuit of independence when all roads point to selfish pragmatism.
None of this is new, of course. For several years, the American public’s trust in national news organizations has been declining among all age groups — indeed, mass media is the least trusted institution in America. It’s not a good thing, during a time of massive misinformation, for news organizations to have to fight for legitimacy.2
But what does it say to the public when a newspaper owner can cut a paper off at the knees and preemptively yield to a potential president for, presumably, the sake of future corporate dealings — well, then, where does that trust in our institutions go?
Who could’ve seen this coming, when one of the wealthiest people in the world was allowed to acquire one of the most influential legacy papers in the country? I am as shocked as any of you.
A Note on Independent Media:
As a result of the Post and Los Angeles Times announcing they would not endorse a presidential candidate this election, there's been a push to support what some people call independent media, which often comes down to individual journalists or teams of journalists covering the news on their own, usually on platforms like Substack.
I understand the impulse, and I myself follow/subscribe to many of these journalists. I do think they are valuable, and I am grateful for their work. As I've written before, though, the press plays such a specific and critical role in a democracy that I am reluctant to believe individuals, with their very finite resources, can replace institutions like the Post and the Times.
Earlier this year, when Pitchfork was absorbed into GQ and most of Sports Illustrated's staff was laid off, I wrote about it:
That is, after all, the role of the fourth estate — to investigate and ask questions on behalf of the people, and to report and provide context on the results. When we talk about checks and balances, we must necessarily include the media.
Instead, we've come so far in capitalism that we've allowed private companies with no interest in the preservation of journalism — and (curiouser and curiouser) the role it plays in questioning the acts of these very same powerful private companies — to buy up media institutions, with no meaningful promises of their maintenance.
I removed the archive paywall from the above and I won't belabor the point further because honestly, my opinion hasn't changed much since, with the exception that I would now emphasize the importance of consuming local news, something I neglected to do back in January.
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The Los Angeles Times also announced yesterday that it would not endorse a presidential candidate, and reports suggest that the paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong (also, wouldn’t you know it, a billionaire) is responsible for the decision in opposition to the paper’s editorial board. While also alarming, the LA Times does not have as robust a history in national endorsements (the paper endorsed Nixon in 1972 (yikes) and then stopped the practice until 2008 — all in all, there have only been five endorsements in the paper’s history), nor is it as historically mired in national politics as the Post. Additionally, the reporting coming out of the LA Times’ decision is, for the time being, a bit more muddled than those concerning the Post. As such, for this essay I’ve chosen to focus primarily on the Post’s non-endorsement.
I want to recommend
’s interview with PolitiFact founder Bill Adair here; they had a conversation about fact-checking and the misinformation crisis that I found really interesting.
Democracy Dies in Darkness, but apparently Fascism Thrives in Indifference.
As usual, so well said 👏