To play Devils Advocate for a moment: Why do we need, or even want, a newspaper to endorse a President? How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?
But that's not what happened here. The editors did their normal endorsement process, but the owner of the paper stepped in and personally overrode their process for this one particular endorsement. That's a way different story from deciding to stop doing endorsements.
At the national level, I don't think it really makes a difference if a newspaper endorses a candidate for President. Those who read and value the opinions of that newspaper are more inclined to vote for the endorsed candidate anyways.
It's not two media organizations. Both wrote endorsements of Harris.
Two self-interested billionaires decided that they and their personal fortunes would be better off if those endorsements were not published.
The message this sends to the Democratic party is: suck up to the rich guys if you want power. It's bad for society.
You don’t think this is a recent lesson? Pretty sure every politician already realized this. Since literally forever. Hell, I worked for a company whose wealthy owner had a steady stream of politicians flowing in and out of our offices promising the world for a handout, support, and help. Seemed like every week there was a tour or two for somebody. I have met literally 3 governors, several senators, US reps, state reps, county commissioners, multiple presidential candidates, sheriffs, mayors, wannabes for all and scores of political support staff who excitedly walked in my office while trying to schmooze the old man.
How is it worse than a small cadre of elitist mono-culture editors using the reputation of WaPo for their chosen candidate?
Bezos didn't force WaPo to endorse another candidate, I think it's actually good they don't endorse anyone at all.
Incomplete list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Democratic_newspape...
He owns the paper, they just work there.
I worked at a major daily newspaper 30 years ago and I personally know of two cases in my short tenure there where news stories were killed because they didn’t want to piss off important advertisers. I am also aware of a story involving a family member of one of the executives that was let’s say “barely” reported. Other local media organizations interestingly had much more detail than we carried.
News has always been and will always be first—a business.
There's definitely some very hard and frank questions we need to ask if free information decides to focus on profits over communication.
Plus in this day and age there is literally no restriction on the flow of public accessible information at least in the US. Even when it was tried recently (twitter, FB, YouTube) during the pandemic the public backlash to that attempts at information control was so great that it might literally sway this election.
like most of the 21st century: Nothing new, just getting more efficient and less subtle with it. 20th century corruption would have had this announced way back in 2023 to make the timing not so obvious at the bare minimium instead of having editorial waste its time on a story that was pulled last minute.
>the public backlash to that attempts at information control was so great that it might literally sway this election.
but nothing much changed. I don't know if public outcry vs output was always this poor, but that certainly seems to have changed over the decades. Too many people uncomfortable enough to complain but not enough to get up and get out.
Two of the three platforms (and the former CEO of one) have publicly admitted what was done at their companies was a mistake and the third has quietly reversed much of the topic controls around pandemic and vaccination content.
I’d say that is something.
Whenever people say stuff like this it reminds me why I'm wary whenever people mention things being business friendly or pro-market because it has a lot to do with protecting certain people who already have a good position over merely following market forces.
Opinion and analysis has always been part of news publications, and plays an accepted role in adding layers of interpretation onto the raw "facts" that is crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert in the subject matter.
There is no neutral publication. Of there is an editorial board there is by definition no neutrality.
That's pretty charitable. In my experience most opinion and "analysis" is typically heavily biased and in service of some agenda.
Essentially they offer a framework of reasoning around the facts presented that the reader can use to make their own evaluation. Like if someone reports that 122,211 electric vehicles were sold last year. Is that a lot? Is that not a lot? You would need to start comparing to previous years, what external factors might be influencing sales. There is intrinsically no way to do that without introducing selective bias about what is considered or not. But the reader at least gets that context to enhance their own understanding.
That doesn't make sense to me - they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. You can criticise the end result, but I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion than the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training and tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context.
Something the people they are writing to and ostensibly on behalf of do not get to enjoy. Perhaps people with grounded perspectives would be more worthwhile. Guest opinions are logical, an actual editorial opinion department? That's just an early retirement plan for writers who don't have what it takes to produce news anymore.
I have no idea what "absorbing" means and how it's different from any random dude spending his day sitting on a couch glued to CNN/MSNBC screen. But the fact that they are professional writers doesn't give them any special quality in the insightfulness of their writings - you can be a professional writer and a complete doofus, to which we have an ample number of examples.
> They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts.
No they are not. Maybe they used to, somewhere in ancient times, but there's no slightest trace of any of it in most of the content produced by major press outlets. If they can do it - which I very much doubt - they certainly aren't bothering to.
> You can criticise the end result
By their fruits you will know them. The end result is the only criteria worth considering.
> I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion
Some of them - with access to sources unavailable to regular people - may be better position to form an informed opinion, if they wanted to. But as soon as that information has been published, they do not have that better position anymore. And in addition to that, what is frequently happening is that they do not just publish the information available to them - instead they distort it and modify it to fit their pre-conceived opinion, and publish that, in hope that the public doesn't know any better (it usually does). If there is any truth to separation of news and opinion sections that we were told so much about it, then by that mere fact the opinion writers don't have any special informational insights - only the news people, working with confidential sources, might.
> the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training
What is that mythical "training"? I see no evidence of any relevant "training" in anything I read in the press. Most of them know how to handle basic grammar and write somewhat coherent text, but any person with basic education can. Beyond that, I don't see any special "training" there. And certainly there is an ample number of people who undergo much more rigorous training about how to handle facts, e.g. when studying hard sciences. Most press opinion writers do not undergo anything like that.
> tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context.
What is that mythical "context" not available to regular people and where does it come from? Is there some secret "context sources" that are only opening if you work for WaPo? What is stored in those "context" treasuries?
I think their existence is a complete fiction. There's just a bunch of people who are getting paid for publishing their opinions because they have a degree saying "journalism" on it or just because they applied to the job and got hired, but they don't have any special insight or "context". I mean, some of them might be just good at thinking and making conclusions (they usually don't survive in the press long) but that would be just random luck. Given the selection pressure, I'd expect lower chance to find such people among professional press than just in a random selection of people with the same class and education level.
That’s why WaPo has consistently endorsed the same party—even when that party’s policies have changed dramatically over time. WaPo would endorse Harris regardless of her policies.
A candidate's social policies may be more important to some people than their fiscal policies. So an analysis of their social policies would be more useful to those readers than an analysis of their fiscal policies.
You can make an expert analysis of a candidate's previous stances and track record on those subjects. Politicians will routinely lie about their previous stances, so that seems like a useful analysis to me.
On abortion, there's now a national patchwork of policy. You could write a damned book analyzing their implementation and consequences.
An article listing analysis like this, with appropriate quotations and explanations would be great. Does WaPo publish stuff like that, consistently, over the length of the campaign? Or would it rather do another "17 reasons why Trump is exactly like Hitler" level analysis?
Because they work for the newspaper and that's part of their job?
> How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?
If they had tried to disguise opinions as journalism by introducing intentional bias and distortion into a story, then that would be a problem. But newspapers have published opinions for ages.
Assuming neutrality isn't something that we should expect newspapers to value, then I think transparency is an good alternative. A presidential endorsement can be a good thing in that the newspaper staff are being openly transparent about their political bias.
Why do you think that readers don’t understand that?
It hasn't felt like this to me for many years, for pretty much any outlet.
Interestingly on another note, opinion writers are often actually less qualified than you’d expect, because the business model of a newspaper doesn’t really work for accumulating expertise vs. a specialized magazine/Substack / etc. The only way to have consistent opinion pieces is to have a generalist, not a specialist.
Of course with endorsements you can technically bring up the is/aught dichotomy. The facts may be what they are but that doesn’t necessitate any particular action. While this is technically true, I never see anyone complaining about the ethics of testing products and endorsing good ones. Wirecutter is basically doing the same thing with headphones and running shoes. Yet I only ever see pushback on political endorsements.
In short, umpires are neutral and fair but the fact that some teams win a lot more than others doesn’t mean they’re not doing their job.
It’s not that politicians share a common set of facts and just have differences of opinion about how to best accomplish the same goal. They are telling vastly different stories. In some sense, the more compelling story wins.
So I see a pretty direct connection between facts and political preference.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/
If I Google "Russian Pee Tape", Business Insider is the 3rd result with claims that the tape most likely exists. 1st being Mashable and 2nd being Buzzfeed.
https://www.businessinsider.com/christopher-steele-trump-pee...
As for the "Russian Pee Tape", I'll give you that one -- fake news sure exists. (I think if it was real, it would have leaked by now -- no pun intended.)
I guess if they entirely stopped publishing self authored editorials it might be "neutral" to not publish a particular one. But that isn't what is happening.
If a purported journalist wants to influence or otherwise lead his audience somewhere, he is many things (commentator, advocate, activist, influencer, etc.) but he is not a journalist.
The entire point of journalism is holding powerful people/groups accountable. This is why countries like China hate journalists. Big companies like “journalists” who don’t ask tough questions. But the job of journalism isn’t just to reprint a press release with slightly different phrasing.
"Engineers make implements of war" or so.
What is an engine? Citing Merriam Webster[1]:
>3a: something used to effect a purpose
So yes, an engineer can make implements of war among many other implements. The people who actually wage war are called other things.
It has been a long tradition for the OPINION EDITORS of newspapers to endorse one or more positions of various political races, especially the presidential race.
What Bezos did is say, no, you cannot and will never again slap the Washington Post's name onto your personal endorsement. I think that's fair, he owns the brand, and I think it's also good for journalism overall because it's not a journalist's job to push opinions.
Endorsements are written and attributed to the Editorial Board, not the entire outlet.
Examples:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/18/opinion/kamala-harris...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/editorials/kamala...
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/a/endorsement-pr...
Objective Reporting: Journalism aims to report events truthfully, objectively, and fairly, without bias. This involves verifying facts, seeking multiple perspectives, and presenting information clearly.
Activist-journalism is an oxymoron. There are very few journalists anymore.
Are there a clear bright line tests for things like "objective" and "bias" and "fair"?
Accuracy, verification, impartiality, yes, but seeking the truth upsets people, and the usual attack on that is to claim bias, prejudice, activism and “fake news” on the part of the journalist/organization
The correct posture, therefore, of the free press when a charismatic authoritarian is on the cusp of power is opposition. So-called “neutrality” is not just foolish, it betrays their entire reason for being!
Where did you get this? Every news source has some bias, journalists, editors and owners of the media house are not some ideal beings. The good ones are honest about their bias.
As to endorsing a candidate, it's absolutely for the paper to decide. Endorsing a candidate might alienate some readers, not endorsing others.
I can read a biased story, with values very different to my own, and still draw conclusions that are still meaningful. Mind you, I would expect omissions and couching that is flawed, but understanding the thinking of those I oppose is valuable and allows me to see their blind spots (or my own for that matter).
But a news organization or journalist being clear about their values and politics also disposes of the harmful notion that they've actually achieved some sort of objective reading or that they're being complete and well rounded. There's a deceptiveness in that pretense which some readers (watchers) may actually take for truth and not think more critically about what they're consuming than that.
I'm 100% on board with impartial reporting, with the caveats that a) endorsements are of the Opinion section, and b) the fact of the matter is that only the higher-minded news orgs would attempt impartiality -- so it's really just ceding the argument.
And LATimes and WaPo endorsements almost certainly won't have an effect on this election.
But, this reeks of cowardice. If you wanted to return to the journalistic standard of impartiality, that's a great thing to do when the pressure is low. Feb 2021 would have been perfect.
Less than two weeks before the most contentious election in modern history? And specifically when one candidate has threatened news organizations and their owners with retribution (legal, commercial, extralegal) for stories they don't like?
That's capitulation, not impartiality. If you believe in the mission of journalism, the honorable option would be to anti-endorse any candidate who threatens that mission.
If you don't believe in that mission, then what are you doing operating a newspaper?
Bezos is a coward.
I can't answer why we would want newspapers to endorse presidents- except that historically, newspapers played a big role in shaping public opinion (now mostly replaced by social media).
Opinion and reporting are separate- famously the WSJ reporting is quite strong and their opinion section is ... often wrong- but as long as an opinion section exists that's kinda their job, to share their opinion. If you want to get rid of opinion that might be a reasonable thing (with cable news and the internet no one has a shortage of opinion these days!) but doing it in such a ham-fisted way so close to the election is not a sign of a carefully thought-out business decision, it's a sign of cowardice.
In theory your idea would be good, except when I look at the market I don't see anyone actually succeeding at that, which suggests to me that it's not actually a very large market of consumers.
It’s not biased to call a spade a spade.
I say supposedly because I find it hard to believe the WaPo endorsement would actually sway anyone.
What's the alternative, do comprehensive research on the record of 20 candidates? I don't have time for that. Read the blurbs they write about themselves in the voter's guide? Why should I trust that, they can write anything there.
Given that editorial boards at newspapers like WaPo traditionally do, I find it notable when the billionaire owner steps in to stop them from publishing the endorsement, due to fear of retaliation from one of the candidates.
To me, that’s worth knowing about.
Edit: lots of changes to try and clarify my point
That may be less of a problem than government goon-squads raiding the Washington Post but I still think it's a problem.
You can make the case that they might be disingenuous or manipulative in sharing what they claim to be their opinions, or that their opinions reflect cultural indoctrination rather than professional assessment, etc -- and so you don't have to take their endorsements seriously.
But it's not a crazy idea that they have something valuable to share for all the time they spend very close to news and politics, and it's not bad to know what their big picture view of topics and people are as they write and select stories for the rest of the paper as it helps you contextualize them in their subjectivity.
Like you said, that can be valuable, especially in politics, when one hopes they aid your messaging. But it’s not a moral or even practical imperative to keep up with journalism.
Imagine learning about sports through ESPN commentary and never actually watching a game.
A similar professional blindspot occurred when many engineers thought twitter would collapse when Elon fired all those people. Because they see twitter as a piece of software, not a brand and organization.
But why is there a cohort so unsure of their decisions they need support from others? Is this how we want people making decisions for the country?
One political faction/side knows a publication is favored by one of the two parties. It can use that fact to feed it false information, or truthful, and watch to see how it gets reported, and the reaction of that electorate.
More so than that question, I think it's more obvious to ask "if you're going to have that argument, is the year Trump, the nation destroying clown, is running, the year to suddenly make a change after something like > 3 decades? Especially when it seems like your owner might be making the change because he wants to curry favor for contracts?"
It's a pretty pathetic look, but I don't particularly expect any civic virtue from Bezos, so not shocked.
No doubt this will be portrayed as Bezos reigning in "Democrat" conspiracies and used to normalize Trump by the denizens of that delusional universe.
It is blatantly obvious that this decision was done solely for Bezos business interests. Ignoring this and leaning into a theoretical debate to defend the decision is insulting.
The issue at hand here is what happens to objective news reporting when a rampant vindictive psychopath enters the office of the President.
The issue here is that Trump is a threat to our democratic system of government. It’s not the time to be changing policies and refusing to endorse. It’s a time for taking a stand.
A lot of folks are exhorting him to resist in order to protect the norm, but it his true that _his_ choice is caused by first amendment violations, not causing them.
If Bezos chose to constrain his own speech due to some perceived threat to his companies from a possible Trump administration, that's still a private decision (and an exercise of his first amendment right to non-expresssion).
To be a first amendment violation, the government has to constrain speech (via force or threat).
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/federal-electi...
There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted only to endorsements in the 2024 United Kingdom general election:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2024_Uni...
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2024/06/28/french-...
It was done under the name of the Director of Le Monde, rather than as an unsigned editorial as is common in English language newspapers, but it sure looks similar to my American eyes.