Washington Post's Non-Endorsement

In a disingenuous editorial

I canceled my Washington Post subscription. A native Washingtonian, I grew up on the paper. In recent years, I had come to think it was a place that had some integrity and tough articles. The paper’s coverage of Watergate is legendary and I was always was proud of that, I loved their cartoonist Herblock and was influenced by his work as a youthful cartoonist.

But I just learned they are not endorsing anyone for president. Not that that makes any difference in the election itself, but it is a symbolic act that we need in these times. This news came to my attention from, Kate Woodsome, a former editor of mine at the Wapo (I wrote a few pieces for them), who left the paper and now has a substack (I highly recommend!). But yesterday I happened to see someone I follow on social media loudly proclaim he’d ended his subscription; I wondered why, but didn’t investigate. Now I know why.

This is from the short editorial from the Post’s Publisher Jeff Lewis, hired last year by owner Jeff Bezos (Amazon owner), who apparently made this decision.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. 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.”

This smacks as disingenuous, at least, to me. I can imagine Bezos thinking that if he endorsed Kamala Harris and Trump wins, there will be retaliation.

I quote from Woodsome’s newsletter because I think it’s important:

“First, Lewis says the role of the opinions team is to “help our readers make up their own minds,” yet the editorial board endorsed candidates in other elections this year, including the U.S. House and Senate.

Second, Lewis wrote that the paper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” These roots are from a bygone era. “The Post before Nixon was a bit of a backwater,” Benjamin Wittes notes in The Bulwark. “It was small, privately held. It had not yet become a national voice.”

Third, Lewis uses the royal “we” but does not say who he’s representing. Outrage and grief from Post staff indicate he doesn’t speak for them.”

Subscribers are leaving the Post by the thousands, and fourteen of the newspaper’s columnists called the decision not to condemn Trump’s threats to the “freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution” “a terrible mistake.”

Sewell Chan, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and former NY Times Opinion editor, writes on twitter: “Sources told me that respected editorial writers Charles Lane and Steve Stromberg worked for weeks drafting an endorsement of the VP. Anxiety mounted as the usual process of editing/review showed.”

I can’t trust their coverage anymore, although I am sure there are many great journalists still trying to do their best there. My friend Ann Telnaes is a cartoonist at the Post, I wonder what she will do. In any other year, I would not care as much who they endorsed. But this is not a normal year. This is not a normal election.

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And we just learned that one of the richest men in the world, Elon Musk has been in converstaions with Russia president Putin for years now. It broke in the Wall Street Journal, which I don’t subscribe to but heard about from Heather Cox Richardson.

“Today, NASA administrator Bill Nelson called for an investigation into the story. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia,” Nelson told Burgess Everett of Semafor, “then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Onward.

Thanks for being here.