Is anyone really changing their mind based on some newspaper endorsement? I’m pretty sure everyone knows who they’re gonna vote for at this point.
Doing it after the board had already written up a document endorsing a candidate (demonstrating clearly that it was not a policy of anyone but the owner, who decided to be an utter coward at the last minute) sends a clear message that even one of the richest men in the world is scared of possible backlash against him.
And the standard to/not publish should be clearly laid out and justified in their own words.
At least Taylor Swift was able to make her recommendation, so I know I'm all set.
The newsroom basically did all they could to say it without saying it.
But that's a societal issue that's only given lip service at most.
And no, not everyone knows how they're going to vote, as crazy as that seems, but I agree that newspaper endorsements are a tiny factor, especially in this election.
Probably not a single voter cares.
It's funny reading the comments here but has anyone considered that Bezos may in fact support Trump? Bezos is a billionaire and Harris seeks to target them to fix the deficit.
Its just possible Bezos supports Trump and it makes economic sense too, though its terribly unfashionable to come out and say such a thing.
The fact that he had the editorial board he had (1), which wrote up an endorsement of Harris several weeks ago for his approval, and then he suddenly decided it was better not to endorse at all? That fits cowardice much more closely than it does pure economic interest.
This isn't government censorship, obviously, but do remember that the only point of the Editorial Board is to write opinion pieces and have them published in the paper. That is their entire job! They aren't reporters, they don't go out and ferret out news. They have opinions, and they write them out and get published in the paper. And they wrote out an endorsement of Harris, and suddenly it was announced (to the board only slightly before it was announced to the rest of the world, according to published reports) that they weren't going to endorse for President any more. That's a fact pattern that leads one strongly to Jeff Bezos' personal cowardice as the most parsimonious explanation.
1: At least before the resignations come in, I expect the board to be very different in a few weeks.
But it wasn’t censored for no reason, and it’s entirely reasonable to question the motives that led to this specific act of censorship.
It’s a big deal that a major historic news organization’s editorial board is overruled by the owner, whether or not you agree with the decision.
I already did (yay early voting), but I was pretty close to just flipping a coin. Not for red vs blue, but for the lesser evil vs one of the more amusing third parties.
Clearly Bezos thinks they are[1], otherwise he wouldn't have gone through the trouble of killing it 11 days before an election.
People in this thread are badly conflating the idea of "Newspaper Opinion Journalism is Bad" with "It's OK for an owner to arbitrarily influence newspaper coverage in real time". You can agree with the former and still agree the later is a horrifying precedent.
[1] Or, "Bezos thinks that Trump thinks they are" might be closer to the truth.
This is the key.
But it exposes the fiction that Bezos allows editorial freedom at the WaPo.
That's why this is news, it's not about a paper changing a policy, it's about one billionaire blatantly burying criticism of a fellow billionaire because they are having a personal fight (or they were having a fight and this is how they've resolved it).
At some level of approximation it doesn't even matter who the candidate is at all. An established trend in the USA is that the public is divided pretty much 50/50 between 2 colors, and hardly sways no matter what happens. Which makes it all pretty laughable way to make the choice (seeing votes as weights, and God makes a choice using these weights to make a decision) on an important question. If we assume the elections in the USA are "fair", it's pretty much flipping a coin every time. (But then, most people are already settled on the idea that it isn't an important choice, hence the "giant douche and turd sandwich" joke is so relatable.)
So while it largely doesn't matter indeed, at some low enough level any small detail might matter. I don't imagine who is that guy who was going to vote Kamala based on WP endorsement, but, well, maybe there is one. Really, I have no idea.
For the few that are still on the fence, then more straight shooting reporting, from any source, can only help.
To me this is a total cop out, and very irresponsible, for the Washington Post to not want to "take sides" and express an opinion. I guess they would've let Hitler win election too, rather than want to "take sides" and say anything bad about him. It's like not wanting to express an opinion on whether a grizzly bear or a hamster would be a better pet for a 5 year old, because you're afraid of upsetting the grizzly bear.
It’s not that I particularly like Trump as an individual (quite the opposite), but Harris is just very unappealing to me from a policy standpoint.
I do think that the Hitler comparison undermines any point you are trying to make so maybe tone it down a bit.
You may have noticed that basically everyone in Trumps first term cabinet has come out and called him things ranging from "moron" to "fascist" to a "danger to the country". This is not normal. It's extremely abnormal. It's a warning to the country.
Just trying to gather details.
Edit: I'm gonna have to spin up alternate accounts again for the first time in a decade if I get told one more time to "slow down" my posts.
This election is not a normal election, sadly far from it. It's not business-as-usual about policies, personalities and partly loyalties.
This election is, sadly, about paying heed to the warnings that have been given to you by the cabinet members, incl. military generals, that worked most closely with Trump in his first term, and the senior Republicans who are voting Democrat.
When multiple generals, who have worked directly with/for Trump, tell you that he is a fascist and "danger to the country", then it would be wise to pay attention.
If you care about the future of America, and want to safeguard democracy, then, sadly, you need to step up and vote to keep Trump out of office.