Beltway Cowards

Whatever happened to the courage of the Washington Post?

News broke today about one of the major providers of news, as word got out that the Washington Post publisher squashed a planned endorsement for Kamala Harris for President, going with a weak "no endorsement" message that violates the editorial freedom that the newspaper enjoyed for decades. Via David Folkenflik at NPR:

Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is neck and neck, The Washington Post has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, the publisher and CEO announced Friday.

"We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates," Will Lewis wrote in an opinion piece published on the paper's website. He referenced the paper's policy in the decades prior to 1976, when, following the Watergate scandal that the Post broke, it endorsed Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. The last time the Post did not endorse a presidential candidate in the general election was 1988, according to a search of its archives.

If the WaPo refused to endorse in 1988, it happened at a time and between candidates - Bush the Elder and Mike Dukakis - where the stakes weren't at severe as today. What's galling is that the editors of the paper were working on an actual endorsement, only to get shut down by their paymaster:

Colleagues learned the news from the editorial page editor, David Shipley, at a tense meeting shortly before Lewis' announcement. The meeting was characterized by two people with direct knowledge of discussions on condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters.

Shipley had approved an editorial endorsement for Harris that was being drafted earlier this month, according to three people with direct knowledge. He told colleagues the decision was to endorse was being reviewed by the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. That's the owner's prerogative and is a common practice...

But had newspaper owners before stepped in like this? I don't recall anything from the 1988 non-endorsement situation where the owner intervened. If it happened back then, it should have led to massive rebukes and resignations, because the independent decision-making and integrity of the editors and reporters would have been disrespected beyond repair. (Personal note, I was in Journalism school at UF at the time, and if that had happened we'd have been discussing the consequences for months afterward.)

Colleagues were said to be "shocked" and uniformly negative. Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who has been highly critical of Trump as autocratic, told NPR he had resigned from the editorial board as a consequence.

Former Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, who led the newsroom to acclaim during Trump's presidency, denounced the decision starkly.

"This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty," Baron said in a statement to NPR. "Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."

The Washington Post Guild, which represents newsroom employees and other staff, posted a message on Twitter saying it was concerned about management's interference in the journalism, considering that the editorial board already had drafted a statement of support for Harris.

"We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers," the statement said.

The Post isn't the only paper committing journalistic malpractice on this matter. The Los Angeles Times - one of the major West Coast papers for the second-largest metro in the United States - also had their owner/publisher interfering with any editorial decision to support a presidential choice. That move did lead to major resignations (via the AP News):

The editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times has resigned after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president, a journalism trade publication reported Wednesday.

Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview that she resigned because the Times was remaining silent on the contest in “dangerous times.”

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza said. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up...”

Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review that the board had intended to endorse Harris and she had drafted the outline of a proposed editorial.

An L.A. Times spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

The L.A. Times Guild Unit Council & Bargaining Committee said it was “deeply concerned about our owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement in the presidential race.”

“We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to Editorial Board members for his decision not to endorse,” the guild said in a statement. “We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management on behalf of our members.”

Two other editors followed Garza out the door over this scandal, and I'm willing to bet the remaining editors are struggling to keep whatever remains of their staff from open rebellion.

The New York Times - the other major newspaper of record - hasn't even come out with an endorsement which is shocking seeing we're barely ten days away from the actual election and deep into Early Voting across most of the country. The silence from that editorial board - which has shown a sickening habit of whitewashing sanewashing everything trump's ever done even in the 1980s! - is deafening.

These media outlets may claim - or in the New York Times' case, they may yet claim - they aren't supporting either candidate, but by their (in)action these papers' owners and publishers are giving trump their silent consent. They refuse to acknowledge the many flaws - the felony convictions, the fraud liability, the judicial finding he committed rape, the many other criminal charges he still faces - that establish how unqualified - how inhuman - trump is for high office. They willfully ignore the many crimes trump committed and are signing off on all the crimes trump threatens to commit if he ever regains control.

These billionaires owning our newspapers and media outlets want trump to win: They know they won't get harmed in trump's promised autocratic regime, and care only for the massive tax cuts trump and the Republicans will ensure. They also know that if they refuse to support Kamala or any other Democratic candidate they won't get political backlash or punishment for it, because by their own nature Democrats are not bullies like trump and the Far Right.

The Beltway media - from the New York Times to the L.A. Times and now the Washington Post - have been washing away every sin and flaw trump committed and continues to commit on the national stage, both as a corrupt businessman and now as a corrupt political disaster.

The national media should be defending the nation from trump instead of surrendering to his threats.

Cowards. Every single one.

Update: Even the Post's columnists disagree with Bezos' and Lewis' decision.

The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years. 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 — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.

It's co-signed by Perry Bacon Jr., E.J. Dionne Jr., David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank, Catherine Rampell, Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, and Karen Tumulty.

I'm screen-capturing it in case Lewis or Bezos decide to wash this away as well.

The Washington Post likes to advertise that "Democracy Dies in Darkness" as part of their marketing, but today the goddamned cowards turned off the lights.