SAUNDERS: Two liberal newspaper giants refuse to endorse Kamala Harris

WASHINGTON

Will Lewis, publisher of The Washington Post, announced Friday that the newspaper will not make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election.

The WaPo non-endorsement came on the heels of news that the Los Angeles Times would not endorse in the race for the White House.

Two blue-city newspapers owned by two billionaires — Jeff Bezos owns The Post, and Patrick Soon-Shiong owns the Times — pulled the plug on expected endorsements of Kamala Harris.

Earthquake.

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election,” Lewis wrote. “Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

“Just … impossible timing for this announcement to be read as a statement of principle,” Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith responded on X.

On Fox News, media guy Howard Kurtz slammed the Post for “hypocrisy,” as he observed that Bezos “does a lot of business with the federal government.”

I agree.

The timing for The Post’s first non-endorsement for president in 36 years does not work in Lewis’ favor.

“Why take a stand on principle now, 11 days before the election, rather than months ago?” Politico Playbook PM’s Eli Okun asked.

Okun also noted The Washington Post opted out of a White House nod after it endorsed Democrats Angela Alsobrooks, who is running for the Senate in Maryland, and Eugene Vindman, who is running for a congressional seat in Virginia.

Since most readers have never been a member of an editorial board, I’ll provide some context here. There is a firewall between the news side and opinion.

Newspaper endorsements from the editorial board (again, separate from the news side) matter because they can help voters navigate state, local and down-ballot races with candidates who are not household names. Or they can serve as markers on how not to vote.

Presidential endorsements are different. An endorsement is less likely to change a vote, but it does showcase a newspaper’s values.

Or lack thereof.

As NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik noted on X, the non-endorsements arrive “at a time of heightened concern over whether news outles [sic] are pulling their punches in order to appease Trump in final days of a neck and neck presidential race.”

As owners, Bezos and Soon-Shiong have every right to direct their newspapers’ endorsements. Just as staff who object have every right to quit and air their grievances, which some L.A. Times veterans are doing.

“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up,” the L.A. Times’ editorials editor, Mariel Garza, told Columbia Journalism Review.

Garza did stand up, and I’m sure it was painful.

A part of me thinks that there is a lesson here for left-leaning journalists who haven’t had to face the reality that not everyone operates as they do — even their left-leaning bosses.

But really, after spending nearly a decade furiously lambasting Trump, the newspapers’ failure to endorse Harris must have landed on staff like a body blow. Meanwhile, conservatives everywhere are reaching for the popcorn and enjoying the show.

To outsiders, WaPo’s motto since 2017, “Democracy dies in darkness,” may have seemed vainglorious. Now insiders have to see that as well.

To much of the public, newspaper editorials may seem like homework. But to the individuals who write them, they have meaning. And consequences.