Why The Washington Post decided to opt out of a presidential endorsement

For the first time in 36 years, The Washington Post will not endorse a presidential candidate. Publisher and CEO William Lewis explained, “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” It comes after The Los Angeles Times publisher blocked a planned endorsement of Vice President Harris. Amna Nawaz discussed more with Sewell Chan of Columbia Journalism Review.

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Amna Nawaz: For the first time in 36 years, The Washington Post will not endorse a presidential candidate this election.

Publisher and CEO Will Lewis explained the decision, saying — quote — “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as an abdication of responsibility. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for, a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”

That comes after The Los Angeles Times’ publisher blocked a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Both papers are owned by billionaires, and their potential role in all of this is now being questioned.

For a closer look, I’m joined now by Sewell Chan, executive editor of Columbia Journalism Review.

Sewell, it’s good to see you. We should note, too, that you have worked at The Washington Post and the l.A. Times. You have led The Texas Tribune. So you have some insight into how these kinds of decisions are made, but what do we know about what went down behind the scenes at The Washington Post, how this decision was made?

Sewell Chan, Columbia Journalism Review: Well, Amna, we know that it was made rather suddenly.

The editorial writers — and we — I reported who they are — had begun drafting this editorial and had gone through the normal process that a very important editorial or endorsement like this would have gone through, several drafts, edits, critiques, feedback.

And up until a week ago — there had been some nervousness that it wasn’t moving forward. But a week ago, I have been told that the editorial page editor reassured the staff that things were moving forward. And then, suddenly, very suddenly, they learned that the piece had been pulled.

And, today, you have an explanation from the publisher. But you have an explanation from the publisher as to why not to endorse, but not really why now.

And I think what’s unusual for both of these cases is that the staff had already gone ahead, drafted these endorsements. So why were they suddenly pulled so quickly and so soon before the election?

Amna Nawaz: So, in the case of The Washington Post, the former executive editor, Marty Baron, today called that decision cowardice. He also claimed that former President Trump will see this as what he called an invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos.

Is there truth to this idea, Sewell, that Bezos is somehow hedging his bets against a potential Trump presidency and doesn’t want to see his business interests harmed? What do we know about that?

Sewell Chan: We know that Bezos was behind this decision. The Post itself confirmed that that’s the case. We don’t know precisely why.

Now, of course, Jeff Bezos is one of the wealthiest people on Earth. Amazon is facing an antitrust lawsuit brought by the Biden administration, actually. Bezos is involved in space exploration efforts. There are many area — A.I. So there are many areas of his interests that would touch upon areas of federal regulation.

So I can’t speak to his motivations, but I can say that this does not look great for The Post, particularly since, when Marty Baron was editor, The Post had framed itself as countering autocracy. Democracy dies in darkness was the slogan Bezos had coined and decided to use as The Washington Post slogan.

So now some people are seeing Bezos as kind of caving to political pressure.

Amna Nawaz: What have we seen in the way of reaction at The Washington Post from editors and reporters and staff?

Sewell Chan: Well, the staff I have talked to are very demoralized and very upset.

Several of them have said to me, and I kind of agree with this, that maybe it’s time to rethink whether presidential endorsements are useful. But you could have done that a year ago and said, we’re going to set a new policy. We’re only going to endorse in local and state races. We’re not going to endorse in presidential. Most people have made up their minds anyway. I think actually that would have been a very reasonable decision.

But that’s not what happened here. It was instead the opposite at both The Post and The L.A. Times, the expectation of an endorsement, an endorsement written, drafted, backing Vice President Harris, and then pulled pretty much at the last minute by the owner in both cases.

Amna Nawaz: So, Sewell, we now have two major publications here, The L.A. Times and The Washington Post, both owned by billionaires, Bezos in the case of The Post and in the case of The L.A. Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, breaking with years of practice, not endorsing a presidential candidate.

Is this a concerning trend of some kind? What does it say to you?

Sewell Chan: Well the trend — I want to be — it’s a great question.

I think that endorsements, we have to think of their utility and usefulness. When — I believe that at the state and local level, when newspapers help people decide, for example local judgeships, ballot questions, of which there are so many in states like California, things where there’s not a lot of news and publicity, that editorials can actually add great insight, because these editorial board members, who are reporters, they’re journalists, they’re interviewing the people on pros and cons of issues.

So you can make an argument that, at the presidential level, it’s less useful because there is so much attention. People are getting information from so many places. And if The New York Times or Chicago Tribune says, vote this way or that way, it may not carry weight the way it once did. So I think that that’s a legitimate discussion to have.

What I think is very disturbing right now to a lot of people in the journalism community and in these two newsrooms is doing it so suddenly and without a lot of transparency. I mean, Will Lewis said in his editorial today — op-ed today, we don’t see it as an abdication of our responsibility. We just want to let people make up their minds.

The challenge is, though, that both The Post and The L.A. Times endorsed Biden in 2020, they have run editorials about raising concerns about Trump’s policies over many years now, and so a lot of people are left asking, well, what has changed? Why now this sudden shift in direction?

Amna Nawaz: That is Sewell Chan, executive editor of The Columbia Journalism Review.

Sewell Chan, thank you. Good to see you.

Sewell Chan: Thank you, Amna.