The number of newspapers endorsing a candidate for president has dwindled with the industry’s financial troubles the past two decades, in part because owners reason that it makes no sense to alienate some subscribers by taking a clear stand in a politically polarizing time,
AP reports.
Yet in the past week, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have angered readers for precisely the opposite reason: by choosing not to select a favored candidate.
The fallout from both decisions continued Monday, with Post owner Jeff Bezos taking the unusual step of publicly defending the move in the columns of his own paper. Three members of the Post’s editorial board resigned their positions and some journalists pleaded with readers to not express their disapproval by canceling subscriptions. Many thousands have already done so.
Bezos, in a note to readers, said it was a principled stand to ditch endorsements. People essentially don’t care and see it as a sign of bias, he said. His comments appeared hours after NPR reported that more than 200,000 people had canceled their Washington Post subscriptions.
If NPR’s report is true, that would be a startling blow to an outlet that lost money and shed staff despite having more than 2.5 million subscribers last year. A Post spokeswoman would not comment on the report.
The Times has acknowledged losing thousands of subscribers due to its own decision.
Both newspapers had reportedly prepared editorials supporting Democrat Kamala Harris. Instead, at the behest of Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong at the Times, they decided not to endorse. Post publisher Will Lewis called it “a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
By announcing their decisions within two weeks of Election Day, however, the newspapers left themselves vulnerable to criticism that their publishers were trying not to anger Republican Donald Trump if voters returned him to power. “It looked like they were not making a principled decision,” said John Woolley, co-director of the American Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Retired Post editor Martin Baron, on social media, said the decision showed “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage” and that Trump would see it as a further invitation to intimidate Bezos.
