What’s behind the Washington Post’s non-endorsement?

In 2017, simply weeks into Donald Trump’s first time period in workplace, The Washington Submit formally introduced a brand new slogan for the storied and celebrated journalistic establishment: “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” allegedly a favourite phrase of iconic reporter Bob Woodward. Whereas the paper’s executives insisted they’d “give you a slogan almost a yr in the past, lengthy earlier than Trump was the Republican presidential nominee,” the mantra was rapidly — and understandably — taken by many as a rallying cry, not only for the Submit, however for the media at giant in the course of the already-evident tumult of the Trump administration.

Seven years later, as Trump approaches Election Day with guarantees of retribution and violence, the Submit’s slogan is as soon as once more within the highlight — this time in gentle of the paper’s sudden and surprising choice to nix a deliberate presidential endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, allegedly “made by proprietor, Jeff Bezos,” the Submit’s union mentioned on X.

Though the impression of the Submit’s choice to not endorse a candidate could, at this stage of the 2024 marketing campaign, be electorally minimal (the identical as if it had endorsed somebody), the implications of such a transfer could also be extra regarding.

“That is cowardice, a second of darkness that may depart democracy as a casualty,” former Submit editor Marty Baron mentioned to NPR. “Trump will have fun this as an invite to additional intimidate the Submit’s proprietor” and different media homeowners.

The Submit’s choice to cancel its deliberate endorsement of Harris — coupled with the same choice by the Los Angeles Instances to not endorse a candidate this yr after having endorsed Democrats for the earlier 4 elections — is an instance of “anticipatory obedience,” the Columbia Journalism Evaluation mentioned. House owners like Bezos and the Instances’ writer Patrick Quickly-Shiong are preemptively appearing out of concern that “if Trump wins he might take vengeance on firms that cross him.” What’s using having a web price of over $200 billion if Bezos cannot purchase “fearlessness within the face of a carnival-barking, would-be authoritarian who’s principally a coin toss away from being, but once more, president of america?” requested Brian McGrory at The Boston Globe.

Within the wake of the nonendorsement announcement, the “#BoycottWaPo hashtag spawned dozens of anti-Submit feedback, in addition to remarks from notable public figures and influencers about canceled subscriptions,” the Submit itself mentioned in an article on reactions to the choice. The nonendorsement “already gave the impression to be impacting subscriptions,” mentioned Semafor, with some 2,000 folks canceling throughout the first 24 hours after the announcement — “an unusually excessive quantity,” based on one Submit worker. By noon Monday, 200,000 folks had canceled their subscriptions, mentioned NPR.

Not everybody agrees with how greatest to reply, nevertheless. Cancellations “do Donald Trump’s work for him,” Baron mentioned to The New Yorker. “He wish to really weaken these establishments and get rid of them.”

“Canceling a newspaper subscription helps politicians who don’t desire oversight,” mentioned CNN’s Jake Tapper on X. Doing so “does nothing to harm the billionaires who personal the newspapers,” and finally “will end in fewer journalists making an attempt to carry the highly effective to account.”

Though newspaper cancellations are a “affordable impulse” for common folks with “few methods of combatting forces larger than them, forces resembling the specter of authoritarianism,” The Atlantic mentioned, doing so solely hurts journalism as an entire. Subscribers ought to as an alternative be “canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions,” that are finally the engine of Bezos’ fortune.

What subsequent?

Beneath Bezos, the Submit “absolutely did extra on the margins to assist Harris by spiking the editorial — by outraging her supporters — than if it had been printed on Sunday,” mentioned Politico’s John Harris. Nonetheless, by dint of his personal position within the energy construction the paper is supposed to carry to job, Bezos ought to both promote the paper outright or “someway put it within the fingers of a really unbiased nonprofit entity.”

Extra broadly, the episode is an “argument in opposition to billionaires shopping for newspapers,” mentioned MSNBC’s Jarvis DeBerry. Whereas there could have been hell to pay if the Submit and the Instances had endorsed Harris, after which Trump gained, that hell “will likely be visited on extra weak folks to a a lot better diploma.” It’s “unforgivable,” then, that these homeowners are “extra involved with their very own pursuits than the pursuits of the readers they serve.”