Updated October 25, 2024 at 17:34 PM ET
Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is neck and neck, The Washington Post has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, the publisher and CEO announced Friday.
"We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates," Will Lewis wrote in an opinion piece published on the paper's website. He referenced the paper's policy in the decades prior to 1976, when, following the Watergate scandal that the Post broke, it endorsed Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. The last time the Post did not endorse a presidential candidate in the general election was 1988, according to a search of its archives.
Colleagues learned the news from the editorial page editor, David Shipley, at a tense meeting shortly before Lewis' announcement. The meeting was characterized by two people with direct knowledge of discussions on condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters.
Shipley had approved an editorial endorsement for Harris that was being drafted earlier this month, according to three people with direct knowledge. He told colleagues the decision to endorse was being reviewed by the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. That's the owner's prerogative and is a common practice.
On Friday, Shipley said that he told other editorial board leaders on Thursday that management had decided there would be no endorsement, though Shipley had known about the decision for a while. He added that he "owns" this outcome. The reason he cited was to create "independent space" where the newspaper does not tell people for whom to vote.
Colleagues were said to be "shocked" and uniformly negative. Editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who has been highly critical of Trump as autocratic, told NPR he had resigned from the editorial board as a consequence.
Former Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, who led the newsroom to acclaim during Trump's presidency, denounced the decision starkly.
"This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty," Baron said in a statement to NPR. "Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
The Washington Post Guild, which represents newsroom employees and other staff, posted a message on X saying it was concerned about management's interference in the journalism, considering that the editorial board already had drafted a statement of support for Harris.
"We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers," the statement said.
Indeed, more than 1,600 digital subscriptions had been cancelled less than four hours after the news broke, according to internal correspondence reviewed by NPR. The furor at the Post was such that its chief tech officer directed engineers to block questions about its decision on the paper's own AI site search, according to internal correspondence reviewed by NPR.
Post corporate spokespeople declined to comment beyond Lewis' statement to readers.
Trump frequently targets news outlets
A similar decision by Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong led this week to the resignations of the paper's editorials editor and two editorial board members. Soon-Shiong said that he had asked the editorial board to draft a "factual analysis" of Trump and Harris' policies and plans. In her resignation letter, editorials editor Mariel Garza said the decision made the paper look “craven and hypocritical,” given its past reporting and editorials on Trump.
The Post's investigative team has routinely reported on wrongdoing and allegations of illegality by Trump and his associates. The editorial board, which is operated apart from the newsroom, has repeatedly declared that Trump's actions in office and his rhetoric as a candidate have rendered him unfit for office.
It earned a Pulitzer Prize for its examination of what Trump did in January 2021 to encourage his supporters to deny the formal certification of President Biden's election.
On the campaign trail, Trump has threatened to exact vengeance on journalists and media outlets should he win the presidency once more.
In particular, he has promised to jail reporters who won't identify the source of government leaks and to strip three big television networks of their licenses to broadcast. (Only local TV stations are actually licensed by federal regulators, not the networks themselves. But the three networks own 80 local television stations between them.)
Book: Bezos thought differently in 2016
The possibility that the Post might withhold an endorsement was first reported by Oliver Darcy's newsletter Status. Even before Friday's announcement, the potential lack of an editorial drew consternation from journalists within the Post, who see it as a major American publication that needs to weigh in on the most pressing issue of the day.
Post owner Bezos, the Amazon founder and one of the world's richest people, has major contracts before the federal government in his other business operations, with billion-dollar implications affecting Amazon's shipping business and cloud computing services as well as his Blue Origin space company.
Bezos brought in Lewis, who has significant conservative bonafides, as publisher and CEO in January. Lewis held the same role at Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal; served as the editor of the London-based Telegraph, which is closely allied with the Tory party; and was a consultant to Conservative Boris Johnson when Johnson was U.K. prime minister.
Colleagues have told NPR that Bezos selected Lewis in part for his ability to get along with powerful conservative figures, including Murdoch.
In his memoir, Collision of Power, Baron wrote that then-Publisher Fred Ryan did not want to make an endorsement in the 2016 race pitting Trump against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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