The Washington Post won’t make an endorsement for president this year. Ben Mullin from the New York Times first reported the news, which was confirmed by the news organization shortly thereafter.
The announcement follows the same decision from the Los Angeles Times earlier this week, prompting a top editor to resign.
David Shipley, the Post’s editorial page director, held a meeting with staff shortly before the announcement went out, a meeting which has been described as “tense” according to NPR. He told staff that he “owns” the decision, and that the Post made the decision to stop endorsing candidates in order to create an “independent space” where the newspaper does not tell people who they should vote for.
This is the first time the Post has not endorsed a candidate since 1988, though Shipley says the decision returns the Post to its policy in the decades prior to 1976. It began endorsing candidates again after the Post broke the Watergate scandal.
Marty Baron, the Post‘s legendary former executive editor, expressed his displeasure on X, posting:
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
For his part, Jeff Bezos hasn’t addressed the situation publicly. His last public post on X came on July 13th, the day someone attempted to shoot Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. “Our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote. “So thankful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families.”
NPR’s David Folkenflik tweeted, however, that sources close to the matter indicate the decision was in fact made by Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Folkenflik says that Bezos hired the Post’s new CEO Will Lewis in part “because of his pedigree in dealing with conservative power centers.”
Political endorsements made by newspapers like the Post probably don’t matter much, if at all. In today’s hyper-partisan world, the electorate are pretty hardened in their views and aren’t going to be swayed by a publication they are convinced is biased one way or another. An endorsement of Harris by the Post is just preaching to the choir. The bigger issue is—if it’s true that Bezos made the call—management making these decisions from above rather than allowing editors to make the editorial decisions. In the case of the LA Times, the decision to end endorsements was reportedly made by billionaire biotech investor Patrick Soon-Shiong, who has a history of intervening in the organization’s reporting.
And the timing in particularly is galling. Are these owners aiming to appease an antagonistic Trump in the event that he wins the presidency? We don’t really know, but newsrooms are supposed to be independent of management. Especially in the face of a candidate like Trump who speaks in falsehoods and poses a legitimate threat to independent media. Just recently he has said that CBS should lose its ability to broadcast on the airwaves over an interview with Kamala Harris that was edited, even though recent interviews of Trump himself have also been heavily edited.
Looking at the Post under Bezos, his track record heretofore is pretty good. The newspaper has continued to critically report on Amazon and Bezos himself since he bought it, for instance. And Bezos did not do much during to engender himself to Trump during his presidency. Trump ruthlessly attacked Bezos over his ownership of the Washington Post, in one instance seeking to jack up USPS shipping rates for Amazon in retaliation to unfavorable coverage (the company has been reducing its reliance on USPS). Bezos for his part kept quiet and allowed the tough reporting to continue.
At the same time, billionaires like Bezos are often immune from real consequence, so it’s possible that he sees Trump in a different light than everyone else. Many of tech’s elites have been circling the wagons to support Trump—perhaps Bezos can compartmentalize attacks on the Post if he believes Trump would be better for tech and the wealthy elite. If he think Trump is going to win, maybe Bezos has made a calculated decision here to not poke the bear.
We have reached out to the Washington Post for comment.
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