In a tight election, should newspapers be ‘neutral’ to Trump? 

WASHINGTON – There is something a little quaint in the outrage over two prominent American dailies, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, breaking with longstanding tradition

by refusing to endorse a presidential candidate

less than two weeks before the polls.

Readers are reportedly cancelling subscriptions by the thousands in protest against the decisions which were imposed by the newspapers’ billionaire owners upon editors who had proposed to endorse Democratic candidate and Vice-President Kamala Harris.  

Critics argue that the newspapers are failing in their duty to take a stand in a critical election where Republican candidate Donald Trump’s rhetoric and embrace of far-right extremism have raised alarm. The supposed neutrality of the newspapers benefits only Trump, they say.

Hardly anyone thinks endorsements from newspapers matter. Still, there are misgivings about the owners’ motivations, as questions emerge over why they decided to weigh in so close to an unusually tight presidential election on Nov 5.

Did they do so because they think Ms Harris is a losing bet, or because they disagree with her progressive policies? Or do they fear retribution if Trump wins? 

Few buy the argument made by Post owner Jeff Bezos

, who is also the Amazon founder, that it is a matter of principle.

“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision,” Mr Bezos wrote in an Oct 28 opinion piece in the Washington Post, three days after announcing the endorsement pullback.

He did not block presidential endorsements in the two campaigns in 2016 and 2020 since he bought the Post in 2013 for US$250 million (S$331 million), saying then that he wanted to reinvent the 147-year-old newspaper.

At the Los Angeles Times, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said he feared picking one candidate would exacerbate the already deep political divisions in the country. The biotech billionaire bought the loss-making 142-year-old newspaper in 2018.

“I have no regrets whatsoever. In fact, I think it was exactly the right decision,” he said in an interview with the Times on Oct 25. He said the paper would “sift the facts from fiction” while leaving it to readers to make their own final decision.

His daughter, Ms Nika Soon-Shiong, a 31-year-old progressive political activist, said the decision was motivated by Ms Harris’ continued support for Israel in its bloody war in Gaza. However, Dr Soon-Shiong said she did not speak for the paper.

Ms Mariel Garza, the editorials editor at the Times, quit in protest when the endorsement was quashed. “It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” she said.

“How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger – who we previously endorsed for the US Senate?” she wrote in her resignation letter.

Mr Charles Morrison, who has been a subscriber of the Washington Post since he was a university student in 1965, said the timing was suspicious.

“If the Washington Post or LA Times had decided a year ago that they wouldn’t be doing presidential endorsements as a matter of considered and inclusive discussion, no problem,” he said.

“But the owners withheld endorsements (close to the election). That looks like both micromanagement and cowardice.”

The obvious question still hangs over the decisions: Were the endorsements pulled because they compromised the commercial interests of their billionaire owners? 

Amazon has cloud computing contracts with the government, and Blue Origin, Mr Bezos’ rocket company, has contracts with the United States Space Force and Nasa. Dr Soon-Shiong’s biotech business may have future dealings with federal regulators.

When Mr Will Lewis, the Post’s chief executive officer (CEO), announced on Oct 25 that the newspaper would cease endorsing candidates in presidential elections, he cast the decision as the newspaper returning to its “roots”. Before the 1970s, the paper rarely endorsed presidential candidates.

But the announcement came on the same day when Trump met Mr Dave Limp, the CEO of Mr Bezos’ Blue Origin. 

Mr Bezos denied the meeting had anything to do with the cancelled endorsement, claiming he had always been above the fray. 

“I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand,” he wrote in the opinion piece.

“There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.”

He also expressed regret about the timing. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it,” he wrote. “That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.”

Framing his decision not to endorse as a mark of the paper’s credibility, Mr Bezos went on to say that the mainstream press caters only to a small elite.

“The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes,” he wrote, “but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite.”

Under Mr Bezos, the newspaper has positioned itself as a guardian of democracy, adopting “Democracy dies in darkness” as its slogan. 

Amazon had sued the government in 2019, alleging that it lost a US$10 billion cloud computing services contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft over then President Trump’s anger about the Post’s aggressive political coverage. A year later, the Pentagon cancelled the project, citing changing technology needs.

Upset that the newspaper is now compromising editorial independence, more than 200,000 people – 8 per cent of the paper’s total paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers –

have reportedly cancelled their digital subscriptions.

Mr Morrison acknowledged that Mr Bezos had “saved the paper” and had not interfered in editorial matters, including when there were negative stories about him. “But the decision not to endorse shows his political inexperience,” he said.

Professor Aaron Kall, an expert in politics and elections at the University of Michigan, told The Straits Times that billionaire media owners were largely welcome in a struggling industry.

“They likely want to hedge their bets and not risk offending Trump in the event that he wins the election. These are practical considerations that business people make,” he added. 

He said there was legitimate concern that the new trend could signal that newspapers would pull back from their traditional watchdog role.

“Especially during a second Trump term without meaningful constraints in place,” he added.

Among a declining number of newspapers that have gone ahead with endorsement for Ms Harris are the liberal bastions like the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the New Yorker. The New York Post and Washington Times, both conservative dailies, have endorsed Trump.

USA Today, which endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its 38 years in 2020, announced on Oct 28 that more than 200 media outlets under its parent company Gannett would stay neutral.