First came the internal freakout when the Los Angeles Times decided not to endorse their home-state Democrat Kamala Harris. Now The Washington Post has followed suit.
Publisher Will Lewis wrote a memo announcing: “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
Near the end, Lewis added:
Our job at The Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.
Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent.
Since 1976, Scott Whitlock found The Post had a perfect 11-and-0 record of endorsing Democrats for president. (They didn’t endorse Dukakis in 1988)
NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, who did a series of articles over internal freakouts that Lewis (with Rupert Murdoch newspaper ties) was taking over as Publisher, worked his anonymous sources: “Colleagues learned the news from the editorial page editor, David Shipley, at a tense meeting shortly before Lewis’ announcement…. Colleagues were said to be “shocked” and uniformly negative.” Of course they were.
Folkenflik was suggesting this was all Lewis persuading owner Jeff Bezos: “He 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.”
This is both mysterious and hilarious. It’s not like anyone imagines that The Post is truly an “independent” newspaper, starting with the blatantly anti-Trump motto “Democracy Dies In Darkness” that they posted after Trump won in 2016. Its subscribers are overwhelmingly Democrats and the federal establishment.
It’s hilarious because the leftists are so upset, as if the Post has succumbed to the darkness of dictatorship. Folkenflik quoted former top editor Martin Baron, who once bizarrely claimed “we’re not at war [with Trump], we’re at work”:
“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.”
“Courage” is defined as full-blown Democratic Party savagery. Climate-change activist/reporter Brianna Sacks:
We won a Pulitzer for public service for our coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection https://t.co/dmCIm8bmKc
— Brianna Sacks (@bri_sacks) October 25, 2024
Some Post opinionators just took the Lord’s name in vain:
Jesus christ.
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) October 25, 2024
Obama bro Tommy Vietor went there with the motto:
The WaPo endorsing Harris would move exactly zero voters her way, but still lol at this cowardly shit from the crew that brought us “democracy dies in darkness” https://t.co/YPGmWfEgYI
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) October 25, 2024
Democracy Died in Daylight. #RIPWashingtonPost https://t.co/Svp1riA7RA
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) October 25, 2024
When Bezos brought in Lewis, a Murdoch guy, the handwriting was in the wall. https://t.co/WI23Tch7WY
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) October 25, 2024
Some used it to sell their “media outlet” as more anti-Trump:
I forget, how does democracy die again?
If you want to follow a publication unafraid to call out Trump for what he is, you can subscribe here https://t.co/IBmwg6RD7s https://t.co/ccPh8UNMmC
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) October 25, 2024
But this is the chef’s kiss, Elie Mystal blaming WHITEY:
Again, the white media, is doing all it can to help Trump win. https://t.co/WnOuK7103a
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) October 25, 2024