Patterico's Pontifications

10/29/2024

The Smart Newspapers Are the Ones Who Don’t Endorse Candidates

Filed under: General — JVW @ 6:24 am



[guest post by JVW]

Lost in all the brouhaha about both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post declining to endorse Presidential candidates this year is the reality that fewer and fewer newspapers are participating in the endorsement game these days. Both the LAT and the WaPo apparently cancelled pending endorsements of Vice-President Kamala Harris due to the direct intervention of the newspapers’ billionaire owners, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos respectively.

At the LAT, the owner’s daughter, a left-wing activist who officially has no formal role at the newspaper but who is privately said to brazenly meddle in both news coverage and editorial content, claims that VP Harris lost the editorial board’s endorsement due to the Biden-Harris Administration’s participation in Israel’s so-called “genocide.” But that claim completely ignores the fact that the editorial board was all set to publish an entirely expected endorsement of Ms. Harris until her daddy pulled the plug, and her father has denied reports that the situation in Gaza played a role. During last week’s Radio Free California podcast, co-host David Bahnsen speculated that the cancelled endorsement was payback for a past beef that Dr. Soon-Shiong had with Ms. Harris when she was the Attorney General of California.

As for the WaPo, Mr. Bezos himself wrote an op-ed in his newspaper expressing his belief that candidate endorsements contribute to a “perception of bias” which affects how readers view the news pages. Even more provocatively, he places his finger squarely on the problem that self-regarding media refuses to acknowledge: “The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.” You can imagine how this must enrage the average WaPo reader, and indeed, 200,000 subscriptions have allegedly been cancelled in the last few days which probably doesn’t augur well for a newspaper which lost $77 million of Mr. Bezos’s vast fortune in the most recent year.

Over at National Review Online, Ryan Mills follows up these major developments in the Presidential race by comparing how urban newspaper editorial boards are treating Senate races in battleground states. Unsurprisingly, those who choose to endorse are largely siding with the Democrat candidate:

While most small and mid-sized papers have given up on endorsements in all but an occasional local race, National Review identified 15 papers — mostly big-city dailies — that endorsed in their state’s Senate race. Thirteen of them backed the Democrat.

In many cases, the endorsement process has become so predictable (and likely lacking in influence) that Republican candidates have simply stopped participating.

Texas newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the Austin American-Statesman, the San Antonio Express-News, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram all have backed Democrat Colin Allred over incumbent Ted Cruz in the race. In Florida, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post both endorsed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell over Republican incumbent Rick Scott. Polls still favor both Republican incumbents to win, but the endorsements strongly suggest that even in red states the newspapers feel free to let their inner leftie freak fly. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether that’s because newspapers have determined that they only reach a niche audience these days and that this niche consists almost exclusively of twee urban progressives who are now largely inculcated from how anybody outside of their orbit lives, as Mr. Bezos suggested. Even a moderate Republican like Larry Hogan in Maryland was bypassed by the WaPo, who while praising his two terms as a Republican governor in a blue state decided that his younger Democrat opponent is preferable because she “has the potential to serve in the Senate for decades,” as if that were a desirable factor rather than a cause for dread.

What is interesting, though, is the number of newspaper editorial boards who have determined that there is no upside to endorsing candidates and have opted out of the process entirely. Newspapers in Arizona and Montana, the former a battleground state in the Presidential race and the latter a battleground state in a key Senate race, are sitting this one out, perhaps realizing that they need Republican subscribers too. The Alden Global Capital newspaper group announced that it would no longer endorse at the Presidential, Gubernatorial, or Senatorial levels, and Gannett, who owns USA Today as well as 200 regional papers, now advises its publishers to not only eschew endorsements but to cut back on opinion writing too. In an internal memo sent two years ago, they surveyed the scene bluntly: “Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think. They don’t believe we have the expertise to tell anyone what to think on most issues. They perceive us as having a biased agenda.” Truer words were never spoken. Do you think anyone at the New York Times is listening?

– JVW

31 Responses to “The Smart Newspapers Are the Ones Who Don’t Endorse Candidates”

  1. So weird that a dying industry wants to Kevorkian itself. The day might come when even the billionaires get tired of wasting their money on self-regarding stenographers.

    JVW (d3fb28)

  2. I drafted this post last night, but this morning Mark Antonio Wright has some similar thoughts about the WaPo’s owner:

    At the end of the day, Jeff Bezos is in the somewhat unique position of owning a major news organization while not needing it to actually make any money. That’s of course different from saying that Jeff Bezos wouldn’t prefer the Post to operate in the black. Naturally, he would. Billionaires don’t become billionaires by developing holes in their pockets. But it does mean that one of the two or three richest men on earth can afford to subsidize an organization dedicated to the pursuit of truth. And it seems that if Bezos is going to continue paying the bills, he’s going to insist that the Post start to change the way it does its work.

    I don’t think there are very many conservatives who think that the Washington Post doesn’t have a long way to go on this front. But Bezos’s forthrightness and openness in explaining himself is as good a start towards the reputational rehabilitation that the Post requires as could be hoped for.

    If Jeff Bezos wants to invest money, time, effort, and prestige into producing a better sort of legacy media organization, one that can reestablish trust across a broad spectrum of the American public, I’m not sure I’d bet the mortgage that he’s going to succeed — but I would at least like to see him try.

    JVW (d3fb28)

  3. Thank you for this, JVW. Things have been awfully fractious here and elswhere. This essay is a fine therapeutic break for me.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  4. It seems like you’re arguing for audience capture, JVW, where newspapers should go with the politics their readers want.

    I think an argument can be made that papers shouldn’t endorse candidates, although at least in local elections I think this can provide a lot of value when done well.

    If a paper’s editorial board does research into candidates and strongly believes one is more qualified, staying away from an endorsement because their audience might not like it feels like business sense over moral sense.

    For me it comes down to: is an endorsement providing value or edification for readers? In a Presidential election, I’m not sure any value is added, but in the race for say a local ballot proposition, a short summary done by a body that has put in some research can provide value to the readers.

    Nate (59e225)

  5. It seems like you’re arguing for audience capture, JVW, where newspapers should go with the politics their readers want.

    No, I’m with you, Nate: newspapers should be very careful about endorsing candidates (also, newspapers should really rethink running lots of opinion pieces), and they should be especially cognizant if their editorial board consistently is out of step with the voters in their region. That is a sign that perhaps their editorial board could use more diversity. I think the example of the WaPo endorsing Larry Hogan’s opponent is telling. Even a moderate Republican who was a popular and successful governor takes a back-seat to a generic Democrat. That tells us everything we need to know about their editorial board.

    JVW (d3fb28)

  6. Sure I largely agree there JVW.

    Nate (30f36d)

  7. And I agree that endorsements in local issues can be helpful, but again, an editorial board should feel an obligation to carefully consider all sides of the issue and not consistently come down on one side of the ideological spectrum. The Los Angeles Times’ endorsement of California’s ballot propositions this year, for example, is as usual utter garbage, just regurgitating whatever the trendy leftist opinion is.

    JVW (d3fb28)

  8. The Dispatch’s policy from their inception was not to endorse candidates, and they’ve held by that, and their band of editors rarely writes team op-eds. With Bezos, the was his bad timing. Catoggio:

    According to the Columbia Journalism Review, staffers had been working for weeks on a draft editorial endorsing Harris. As recently as last week, the editor in charge believed it was on track for publication. Only “within the past few days,” allegedly, did someone up the chain suddenly decide to pull the plug.

    Coincidentally, it was also within the past few days that Trump confirmed he would be in Austin, Texas, on Friday for an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. News broke after that interview took place that, while Trump was in town, he also met briefly with the CEO and vice president of Blue Origin, a private space exploration firm and top competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The owner of Blue Origin is—ta da—Jeff Bezos.

    To repeat: Trump made plans to visit Austin, the Post’s Harris endorsement was quickly and inexplicably quashed, and hours later the space team was granted an audience with him. A quid pro quo, one might call it, to borrow a phrase made famous during his first term.

    Theories differ on whether Trump demanded a favor before agreeing to meet with Blue Origin or whether Bezos spiked the endorsement preemptively to butter Trump up before a scheduled meeting (call it “anticipatory obedience”), but no one seems to disagree on the bottom line. Bezos understands that Trump is fanatical about “loyalty” and will eagerly abuse his power as president to make trouble financially for anyone who makes trouble for him politically, so he chose to signal his “loyalty” to the next administration before it takes power.

    And Bezos has good reason. He paid the price for “disloyalty” once before.

    Yes, Bezos denied that Blue Origin had anything to do with it, but he’s the one who created this timing issue, and he obviously made his decision quickly and recently. It’s also true that, in a fit of retribution, Trump canceled a $10 billion contract with Amazon and gave it to Microsoft, basically because Bezos owns the WA Post and their writers said mean things about Trump.

    However, the job of the editorial board is to write opinions on important matters of the day, and on the most important current issue, a presidential election, Bezos put a muzzle on them.
    As I see it, the problem is less about the board and more about Bezos and the newsroom he allowed to persist. He’s owned the paper for eleven years, but why is there still so little ideological diversity on the board? Why couldn’t there be a decent sample of conservatives on their team where, like USA Today used to do it, have both a pro-Harris and pro-Trump stance?

    Paul Montagu (7d8750)

  9. I think an argument can be made that papers shouldn’t endorse candidates, although at least in local elections I think this can provide a lot of value when done well.

    If not well done, the harm is even more enormous since (unlike national/statewide races), there aren’t multitudes of competing voices that are weighing the issues/candidates.

    SaveFarris (8940bf)

  10. #8 — +1

    Appalled (ba9e75)

  11. In considering the notion that Bezo’s made the decision because of fear of a future administration and the power the executive can wield, does that also confirm that previous decisions were made out of fear of what other administrations were doing?

    I would think a 10 billion dollar contract would go a long way towards influencing the recipient.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  12. On the one hand, I get what Bezos is saying in his editorial and see the argument, although I tend to think open bias that people can adjust around is *more trustworthy* than the pretense of non-bias.

    That said, doing it NOW, with the editorial already written, overriding the editorial board, completely undermines it for me — he’s interfering with the editorial integrity of the team, and how can I or anyone else say where else he is interfering?

    The remaining trust I had in the WaPo is now *gone*.

    aphrael (078a66)

  13. > In considering the notion that Bezo’s made the decision because of fear of a future administration and the power the executive can wield, does that also confirm that previous decisions were made out of fear of what other administrations were doing?

    Is the current adminsitration, or were previous administrations, openly threatening people who criticize the President (or Presidential nominee) with retaliation?

    aphrael (078a66)

  14. > In considering the notion that Bezo’s made the decision because of fear of a future administration and the power the executive can wield, does that also confirm that previous decisions were made out of fear of what other administrations were doing?

    Is the current adminsitration, or were previous administrations, openly threatening people who criticize the President (or Presidential nominee) with retaliation?

    aphrael (078a66)

  15. Is the current adminsitration, or were previous administrations, openly threatening people who criticize the President (or Presidential nominee) with retaliation?

    Do that have to see open threats for you to believe that dangling multi billion dollar carrots likely come with the string attached?

    (If this is opinion question heads down the “show me the proof!!” road, then I am uninterested in the answer until it is proven that Bezos was coerced into this recent decision.)

    BuDuh (fe7438)

  16. Trump has a track record this time around.
    He has a history of yanking contracts and firing people when his tender ego isn’t properly stroked.

    Paul Montagu (f97d41)

  17. I will put Paul down for believing it is impossible for enormous government contracts to possibly influence the recipient.

    I thought Reagan once said “If you are going to crawl in bed with The Government, don’t expect a full night of sleep.”

    (Maybe that wasn’t him.)

    BuDuh (59d701)

  18. @8

    As I see it, the problem is less about the board and more about Bezos and the newsroom he allowed to persist.

    Paul Montagu (7d8750) — 10/29/2024 @ 9:25 am

    Absolutely this Paul.

    I really don’t have a problem with ideological bents on the editorial boards. That’s easy to spot and factors into my analysis of whether they’re full of crap.

    It’s the newsroom, that is the problem… and I have serious doubt Bezo can fix that.

    whembly (477db6)

  19. BuDuh (59d701) — 10/29/2024 @ 11:42 am

    I’ll put you down as a troll, because I didn’t say that.

    Paul Montagu (0b8913)

  20. To answer BuDuh —

    1. The timing is suspect on Bezos’ change on his editorial page. The timing is suspect on Trump’s meeting with the Blue Origin executives. We know Trump has cancelled contracts wth Bezos because the WaPo makes him unhappy before. Without tapes, documents, etc, you can’t prove anything. Still, in the confines of a blog comment section, we can draw every obvious conclusion we want to draw.

    2. Has the Biden administration done similar dirty deals? Not that I am aware of. My best guess is that Mr. Musk might find his government contract business drying up over the next few years. Since he has been meddling in foreign policy lately and interfering with American foreign policy interests — there’s some good reason beyond simple retribution on why that might be so. But the thought of retributon might make President Harris feel a little more joy when Elon starts losing contracts.

    Appalled (ba9e75)

  21. Thank you, Appalled.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  22. My best guess is that Mr. Musk might find his government contract business drying up over the next few years.

    Certainly not SpaceX-with the implosion of Boeing’s space operations, they are likely to be the only launch vehicles for the civilian, commercial, and military space programs.

    Rip Murdock (ea3d80)

  23. > Do that have to see open threats for you to believe that dangling multi billion dollar carrots likely come with the string attached?

    Do open threats really bother you so little?

    aphrael (078a66)

  24. Open threats do bother me, aphrael. I apologize if I am skimming over the open threat you are concerned about. Is it linked here? I will scroll back to see what I missed.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  25. My best guess is that Mr. Musk might find his government contract business drying up over the next few years.

    I’d guess that they’ll force a drug test, he’d fail, and they can bar him officially instead of the hand wavy bit where Gwen runs everything and Musk shows up for launches. He’d be barred from direct mgt.

    For Tesla, stupid Hitler would be a disaster, a Harris administration is much better for Tesla the company. This isn’t the same as TSLA the meme stock though.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  26. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post-bezos-endorsement-president-cancellations-resignations

    Indeed, in his own opinion piece published by the Post Monday evening, Bezos acknowledged that the timing was not ideal.

    “That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy,” he wrote.

    Not ideal? What an understatement. He pulled the rug with just over a week before the election.

    I don’t think Bezos is doing this out of principle. If it were out of principle, the time to announce the no-endorsement policy should have been a year or more ago. Doing this just prior to the election tells me that Bezos knows Trump is likely to win, and doesn’t want to be the recipient of Trump’s retribution.

    Inadequate planning? Okay. Then just eat it this time, and institute the no-endorsement rule after this election. Otherwise, your motives are extremely suspect.

    norcal (e0806f)

  27. Doing this just prior to the election tells me that Bezos knows Trump is likely to win, and doesn’t want to be the recipient of Trump’s retribution.

    Or he feels the shackles will be lifted and he can now operate a truly free press without the constraints of a leftist deep state.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  28. BuDuh (59d701) — 10/29/2024 @ 3:57 pm

    If he thought there were shackles, he should have lifted them long before now. Doing it this close to the election just tells me he’s afraid of a Trump victory and the repercussions from it.

    norcal (e0806f)

  29. Or he welcomes a Trump victory.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  30. Bezo’s has a bunch of losers working for him at the WaPo. This is a good way to get them to quit and save him the effort.

    BuDuh (59d701)

  31. They generally endorse the incumbent, or the more well known person and only want to endorse serious candidates.

    The New York Times not only endorsed but published what looked like an editorial on the front page It was a list of all that they found wrong with Donald Trump. which directed people t pages A10-13 which was a selection of previously published material.

    Donald Trump could have used that in a speech or in an ad because missing from it was anything about abortion the Democratic claim that he wanted to outlaw abortion.

    And he could say they threw everything but the kitchen sink at him, but they didn’t accuse of him of wanting to do anything about abortion. And, what’s more, in news articles the New York Times said – and he could quote them – they said that he had said he would veto a nationwide abortion ban. So, in all but words, it accused the Harris campaign, and many other Democrats, of lying

    They must have gotten letters or email because they weakened what they said and ran an a little squib today saying (abortion activists say) he could effectively ban it without a law. It went to an article that had appeared on the web four days ago. The article does not quite say that.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/trump-abortion.html

    “Trump did this,” the campaign ads for Kamala Harris declare.

    “This” was appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for the state abortion bans that have led to often harrowing experiences for many pregnant women denied care.

    As seismic as that was, activists on both sides of the debate believe a newly elected President Donald J. Trump could go further to effectively ban abortion nationwide — and abortion opponents have given him the road map.

    It is hard to know what on the anti-abortion agenda Mr. Trump would support. He has shifted his public views on abortion so often that it’s hard to say what he believes or wants to do. He has said he wants to “leave it to the states.” More recently, he said he would not sign a federal abortion ban, and would veto one if a Republican-controlled Congress sent it to his desk. He has publicly supported I.V.F., which some anti-abortion groups oppose.

    But Mr. Trump would also be under pressure from the anti-abortion groups that have ardently supported him to take other actions that would go much further than the 15-week national bans that congressional Republicans have proposed since Roe was overturned. These include reversing federal guidance that says even states with bans must allow doctors to provide abortion in cases of medical emergency; using administrative agencies to ban abortion pills; and using his executive powers to achieve the anti-abortion movement’s ultimate goal: recognizing fetal personhood in the Constitution.

    Those actions would not require cooperation from Congress, and could play out in the far reaches of the federal bureaucracy by Trump appointees. While any changes would almost certainly be challenged in court, the judges who hear those cases could be Trump appointees, existing or new.

    It further mentions:

    The easiest and perhaps most consequential move, and the one the anti-abortion movement is pushing hardest, would be enforcing the Comstock Act, which is long dormant but still on the books. That law, enacted in 1873, made it a federal crime to send or receive materials “designed, adapted, or intended” for “obscene” or “abortion-causing” purposes.

    Anti-abortion groups have pushed to use the Comstock Act to ban abortion pills. They also say that the law would criminalize the delivery or receipt of medical instruments used in abortion.

    Of course this would cripple the ability even to do an abortion to save the life of the mother.

    A court is unlikely to rule this law (which Congress neglected to repeal) is still in effect as far as it pertains to abortion, and also t would be quite likely to be repealed even if there was a majority of pro-life members of Congress, perhaps after some attempts to limit the repeal.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

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