Newspaper Endorsements Die in Daylight
It sure has been a banner week for the triple haters.
Just when you thought that Donald Trump had cornered the market on cringe by making groundwork-laying false claims about fraudulent Pennsylvania ballots, along comes a pro-Kamala Harris ad narrated by Julia Roberts telling fearful MAGA wives that they can sneakily vote Democrat, and then what’s this? Joe Biden is still out there barking malarkey, this time about Trump’s “garbage supporters“?
As if rising to the defense of its newly minted status as the most distrusted institution in America, the news media over the past few days has responded to the one-upsmanship of awful with a hearty “Hold my beer.”
In an October surprise for the newspaper industry, first the L.A. Times, then USA Today, and most spectacularly The Washington Post all announced in these final days of the 2024 campaign that they were breaking with their tradition (very recent, in the case of USA Today) of endorsing a candidate for president. The fallout has been impressive: “At least 250,000” cancelled subscriptions at the Post (a 10 percent drop), a reported 18,000 more at the Times (5 percent range); staff resignations at both.
But what really ignited the triple haters—those with disdain for Democrats, Republicans, and the media—were the haughty, whither-democracy expressions of journalistic umbrage.
This “terrible mistake” is “an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love,” 21 Washington Post columnists wrote in a joint letter. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them.” Wrote L.A. Times Editorial Page Editor Mariel Garza in her resignation letter: “It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist….In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity.” (The San Francisco Press Club on Tuesday bestowed to Garza its first-ever Integrity in Journalism Award.)
Similar noises could be heard everywhere from former Post editor Marty Baron (“this is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty”), to former Baltimore Sun reporter-turned-TV writer David Simon (“this kind of abuse of a public trust by a publisher is unacceptable”), to the new trending Twitter hashtag #AnticipatoryObedience. (Sample, from Protect Democracy founder Ian Bassin: “Trump hasn’t even won and media outlets from @washingtonpost to @latimes to @CNN to more are already engaged in #AnticipatoryObedience. Terrifying trajectory for press freedom and independence if he actually returns to power.”)
Terrifying, or unintentionally hilarious depending on your vantage point. “There is literally nothing funnier in the known universe,” cracked Twitter wag Dave “Iowahawk” Burge, “than journalists’ sense of self-importance.”
As per usual in media controversies, reactions to the wave of non-endorsements have fallen largely along political lines. Conservatives, libertarians, and centrists nodded vigorously at Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s explanation that “presidential endorsements…create a perception of bias,” and that “most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.” Journalists and left-leaners, meanwhile, warned of “looming autocracy” and asserted connect-the-dot observations as explanatory fact.
“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people,” longtime opinion page hand Robert Kagan told The Daily Beast, referring to the Bezos-owned space company. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.” (Bezos said he had no prior knowledge of the Blue Origin meeting, and that “Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision.”)
Overshadowed as ever in the politicized ruckus is the basic economic fact that the newspaper business has collapsed by about 75 percent since 1990 across all measures (circulation, revenue, staffing); and is now hemorrhaging money after decades of 20 percent profit margins. (The Post in 2023 alone lost $77 million.) In an industry desperate to shed expenses, arguably the most cost-ineffective section of the entire newspaper is the one being so bitterly fought over this week: unsigned editorials.
When Michael Kinsley took over the L.A. Times opinion pages in 2004, he infamously (within the paper, anyway) prepared a PowerPoint pr
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