On Friday, the Washington Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced that the paper would no longer make endorsements for president—after its journalists had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision was made by Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner.
Over a period of several weeks, a Post staffer told me, two Post board members, Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg, had worked on drafts of a Harris endorsement. (Neither was contacted for this article.) “Normally we’d have had a meeting, review a draft, make suggestions, do editing,” the staffer told me. Editorial writers started to feel angsty a few weeks ago, per the staffer; the process stalled. Around a week ago, editorial page editor David Shipley told the editorial board that the endorsement was on track, adding that “this is obviously something our owner has an interest in.”
“We thought we were dickering over language—not over whether there would be an endorsement,” the Post staffer said. So journalists at the Post, in both the news and opinion departments, were stunned Friday after Shipley told the editorial board at a meeting that it would not take a position after all. This represents the first time the Post has sat out a presidential endorsement since 1988.
That article was really worth reading. Thank you for posting it. I didn’t know how much upheaval there has been surrounding endorsements in the field of journalism. It’s crazy that we’ve gotten to the point where the owners of two major papers both got involved to stop an endorsement over the same election against the same candidate. The article mentions that people have been canceling their subscriptions in protest, but… it doesn’t seem like enough.
Subscriptions don’t make their money. Advertisers do.
Until they start losing advertisers, they won’t change a fucking thing.
I’m from Germany, which means that we learned an re-iterated the history around the crumbling of Democracy in the Weimar Republic and the rise of the 3rd Reich in school, in several different subjects.
And now, more than 20 years since I graduated, I still don’t understand how people could vote for Hitler with his rhetoric and his hatefulness. I sit here and can’t believe that Donald Trump has realistic chances to win, and he will get votes from people who should know better and not only the votes from obvious Nazis. It’s depressing.
Wish we could all be smart enough to drop Amazon in protest.
It’s here people. The oligarchs are taking over the US. It’s not just Trump, it’s the whole clique. To them Putin isn’t just daddy, Russia is a rolemodel. A society run by oligarchs held together by one strongman. And the people… whahaha.
Kind of get the feeling that Bezos may be on Epstein’s list
“Democracy dies in darkness” was aspirational.
Anyway, good job dipshit, now you’ve made a much bigger story about the fact that the WaPo endorses Harris and Bezos doesn’t.
Bezos is bowing to Trump
I think it’s the other way around, but same problem.
A billionaire plays both sides.
Until fascism looms, then they get in line.
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