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WASHINGTON POST SAYS IT WILL NOT ENDORSE CANDIDATE FOR FIRST TIME IN
30 YEARS  
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Anna Betts
October 25, 2024
The Guardian
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_ Newspaper condemned for ‘chicken-shit’ decision on White House
race as staffers say they are ‘deeply concerned’ _

Will Lewis wrote that he saw the decision as ‘consistent with the
values’ of the paper., The Washington Post/Getty Images

 

For the first time in over 30 years, the Washington Post
[[link removed]] announced on
Friday its editorial board would not be making an endorsement of a
candidate in a presidential election
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“We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential
candidates,” Will Lewis, the newspaper’s publisher and chief
executive officer said in a statement
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Friday, less than two weeks before the 2024 presidential election.

The Washington Post
[[link removed]] editorial board
has endorsed a candidate for almost every presidential election since
it endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976. Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of
Amazon, bought the Post in 2013.

The decision by the Post’s leaders not to endorse any candidate in
an election widely seen as the most consequential in recent US history
triggered outrage among some prominent current and ex-staffers, and
other notable figures.

Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post,
criticized the newspaper’s decision, calling 
[[link removed]]it “cowardice,
with democracy as its casualty”.

Donald Trump, Baron said, will “see this as an invitation to further
intimidate the owner” of the Washington Post, the billionaire Jeff
Bezos. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for
courage,” he added.

Susan Rice, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and former
domestic policy adviser for the Biden administration, called
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decision “hypocritical”.

“So much for ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’,” she said,
referring to the newspaper’s official slogan, adopted in 2017
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Bezos’s ownership. “This is the most hypocritical, chicken-shit
move from a publication that is supposed to hold people in power to
account.”

David Maraniss, a Pulitzer-winning reporter and editor
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Post, added [[link removed]]:
“The paper I’ve loved working at for 47 years is dying in
darkness.” Multiple outlets have also reported that Robert Kagan,
the newspaper’s editor at large, has decided to resign
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editorial board following the announcement of the paper not to endorse
in the presidential race.

A senior Post staffer, speaking to the Guardian on condition of
anonymity, pointed out: “The Post’s editorial board just won a
Pulitzer Prize
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calling out authoritarianism and defending democracy around the
world”, adding: “How sad is it that we can’t do that at home?”

“There’s a lot of sadness and frustration among staff,” they
added. “Most of all, it feels like a blow to WaPo’s long tradition
of courageous coverage.”

The Washington Post’s decision comes after widespread shock over a
similar decision from the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times,
Patrick Soon-Shiong, earlier this week, to block a planned
presidential endorsement 
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Kamala Harris. That move triggered high-profile resignations at the
publication amid staff anger.

In his statement on the Post’s decision, Lewis cited times in the
past when the newspaper’s editorial board chose not to endorse
presidential candidates, citing independent journalism, which Lewis
described as “right” and something the paper was now “going back
to”.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including
as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of
another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis said.

“That is inevitable,” he said, adding: “We don’t see it that
way.”

Rather, Lewis said it was “consistent with the values” the
newspaper has stood for, and what the newspaper hoped for in a leader:
“character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration
for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its
aspects”.Lewis added that not endorsing was, in his view, also a
statement in support of readers’ ability to make up their own minds
on the most consequential of American decisions – “whom to vote
for as the next president”.

“Our job at the Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom
non-partisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported
views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own
minds,” he said, adding: “Most of all, our job as the newspaper of
the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be
independent.”

“And that is what we are and will be,” he concluded.

NPR reported
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many Washington Post staffers were said to be “shocked” and their
reaction “uniformly negative”.

The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents many of the
paper’s staffers, said
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a statement on Friday that it was “deeply concerned” by the
newspaper’s decision, “especially a mere 11 days ahead of an
immensely consequential election.

“The role of an editorial board is to do just this: to share
opinions on the news impacting our society and culture and endorse
candidates to help guide readers,” it added.

The Guild also said that according to the paper’s reporters and
Guild members, the endorsement for Harris was already drafted and the
decision not to publish was made by Bezos himself. The Guild said that
they were already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers.

The Columbia Journalism Review also reported
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Friday that the Washington Post’s editorial board had already
drafted an endorsement of Harris, and said that even as of a week ago,
the editorial page editor David Shipley told the editorial board that
the endorsement was on track, leaving the board and staffers
“stunned” when the announcement was made on Friday.

At the Los Angeles Times, the decision not to endorse resulted in
the head of the editorial board
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Mariel Garza, and several other members 
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the board resigning
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protest.

“In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how
I’m standing up,” Garza told
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Columbia Journalism Review, regarding her decision to resign.

A journalist at the Los Angeles Times called their newspaper’s
decision “unreal” and “cowardly”.

The Los Angeles Times publisher’s daughter weighed in on her
father’s decision not to have the newspaper endorse a candidate, and
posted a series of statements on social media
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that the decision to not endorse a candidate was also connected to
Harris’s position on the war in Gaza.

“This not a vote for Donald Trump,” she said, but rather a refusal
to endorse Harris, who, she said “is overseeing a war on
children”.

Unlike the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, in September the
editorial board at the New York Times endorsed
[[link removed]] Kamala
Harris, calling her “the only choice” for president.

The Guardian has also endorsed
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 This article was amended on 26 October 2024 to correct a misspelling
of David Maraniss’s surname.

ALSO FROM THE GUARDIAN -- RELATED

What Does Elon Musk Want from All this Politicking?
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The Billionaire Is Pledging to Give Away $1m a Day and Campaigning
Hard – Is Deregulation the Driving Motivation?

by Blake Montgomerry

October 23, 2024

Elon Musk speaks at Life Center church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on
Saturday. Photograph: Sean Simmers/AP

Over the weekend, Elon Musk
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away $1m a day
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registered voters in battleground states in the US who sign a petition
by his America Pac
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support of the first and second amendments. He awarded the first
prize, a novelty check the size of a kitchen island
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at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday and the second on Sunday in
Pittsburgh. He says he’ll keep doing it until the election
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November. The stunt is potentially illegal
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experts say.

After endorsing Donald Trump
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quickly founded America Pac and funded it with $75m. For the past
several weeks, he’s been making multiple in-person campaign
appearances per day, focusing especially on Pennsylvania, a swing
state.

WHAT IS MUSK CAMPAIGNING FOR?

My colleagues Nick Robins-Early and Rachel Leingang published a piece
[[link removed]] last
week looking at Musk’s inescapable influence on the US presidential
election. The article dives into the past several months of Musk’s
political activities, but I was particularly fascinated by one
question it posed: is deregulation the driving motivation behind
Musk’s political endeavors across the globe? Is all this spending
and campaigning about cutting government departments?

Rachel and Nick write:

These constant fights with the full alphabet of regulatory agencies
has coincided with Musk making numerous public statements in favor of
deregulation, as well as calling for a full-scale audit of the federal
government. That idea has found purchase with Trump, who announced in
September that he would launch a Musk-led government efficiency
commission that would audit federal agencies for places to cut. Musk
wants to call it the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge,
invoking one of his favorite memes, an expressive shiba inu.

A tweet by Elon Musk about his proposed Department of Government
Efficiency, or Doge. Photograph: X/The Guardian

Although the plan is vague on details and fails to address the obvious
conflict of interest in Musk auditing the regulators that oversee his
companies, both Trump and Musk have repeatedly brought up the idea of
Musk holding some role in a potential Trump administration. During an
appearance on Fox News earlier this week, Trump said that he would
create a new position called ‘secretary of cost-cutting’ and
appoint Musk.

‘He’s dying to do this,’ Trump said.

WHAT DOES MUSK WANT AROUND THE WORLD?

Musk’s fight for fewer government agencies is not limited to the US,
though. Sometimes, his fights with “the regulators” set him
against other billionaires. In India, Musk is fighting with the
government over the distribution of satellite broadband
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emerging victorious over Mukesh Ambani. Asia’s richest man had
sought terms more favorable to his own telecommunications empire.

He has proclaimed himself a “free-speech absolutist” and
complained about the regulators of speech. When the UK was in the
throes of violent race riots a month after its general election, Musk
tweeted, “Civil war is inevitable,” and posted a cartoon showing a
character in an electric chair, claiming that this would be the
government’s punishment for free speech in the UK by 2030. He has
made similar critiques of the California government and Joe Biden’s
administration.

His fight for deregulation regularly pits him against the judiciary in
whichever country where he’s operating. Last month, Brazil blocked
access to X over its failure to comply with a judge’s orders and
then fined Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, for its sister
company’s transgressions. Musk and X eventually acquiesced
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ARE THE REGULATORS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST MUSK?

Recently, some of the regulators have taken a new tack: they’re
starting to penalize one Musk company for what another Musk company
(or Musk himself) does.

Last week, Europe’s regulators took a page out of Brazil’s book,
communicating to lawyers at X that the EU could levy fines
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the social media company for failing to comply with the Digital
Services Act. Crucially, the regulators suggest calculating that tax
not just based on X’s revenues, but the total revenue of Musk’s
businesses. The penalty, presumably much higher, could financially
hobble the social media platform.

In California, a coastal commission cited Musk’s propensity to tweet
misinformation during a vote to reject a petition by SpaceX and the US
air force to launch more rockets from a base on a Santa Barbara beach.
Musk sued in response, alleging political bias and first amendment
violations. He just wants to be left alone to launch rockets and tweet
and spend tens of millions on the presidential election in peace.

_ANNA BETTS is a breaking news reporter for Guardian US_

_BLAKE MONTGOMERY is tech editor for Guardian US in New York City._

_GUARDIAN US: Covering American and international news for an online,
global audience._

_Guardian US is renowned for the Paradise Papers
[[link removed]] investigation
and other award-winning work including, the NSA revelations
[[link removed]], Panama Papers
[[link removed]] and The
Counted
[[link removed]] investigations._

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