Opinion | The fallout from The Washington Post’s controversial decision to not make an endorsement for president

It’s hard to remember this much of an uproar over something a newspaper didn’t write.

The Washington Post’s decision to not make an endorsement for president has staff seething and its audience so angry that it is reportedly canceling subscriptions by the thousands.

It also has drawn widespread criticism, including from some of the paper’s most legendary journalists.

The stunning news came down late last week when Will Lewis, the Post’s publisher and CEO, put out a statement saying the paper would not be making a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years. He pointed to the Post’s former tradition, prior to 1976, of not endorsing a candidate for president.

But in the end, the decision to not endorse a candidate was made by Post owner Jeff Bezos for reasons that had nothing to do with tradition.

The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson reported, “The editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, though Mr. Bezos did not read it before his decision, Mr. Lewis said in a statement on Saturday. The decision by Mr. Bezos had been in the making for weeks. It is not clear what motivated his final determination or its timing.”

The decision and the timing — less than two weeks before the election — drew swift condemnation.

Marty Baron, the well-respected former executive editor of the Post, tweeted, “This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

Appearing on CNN, Baron said, “To declare a moment of high principle only 11 days before the election — that’s just highly suspect. It’s just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point.”

Baron also said, “If their philosophy is readers can make up their own minds on the big issues that they face in this democracy, then don’t run any editorials. But the fact is they only decided not to run an editorial in this one instance 11 days before the election.”

Robert Kagan, an editor at large who has written for the Post for more than two decades, resigned. He told the Times that the decision was “clearly a sign of pre-emptive favor currying” of Donald Trump. Kagan added, “The Post has been emphasizing that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. And so this is the election, this is the time when we decided that we’re neutral?”

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Kagan said, “If we want to know how Trump is going to stifle the free press in the U.S., this is the answer. This is how it’s going to happen, especially when the media is owned by corporate titans who have a lot to lose if Trump is angry at them.”

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the legendary Post reporters best known for their work on Watergate, issued a joint statement to CNN’s Brian Stelter, saying, “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”

In addition, 19 opinion columnists at the Post published a piece saying it was a “terrible mistake” to not make an endorsement.

They wrote, “It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”

In a separate column, Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who has been at the Post for 40 years, wrote, “I have never been more disappointed in the newspaper than I am today, with the tragically flawed decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential race. At a moment when The Post should have been stepping forward to sound the clarion call about the multiple dangers that Donald Trump poses to the nation and the world, it has chosen instead to pull back. That is the wrong choice at the worst possible time.”

Michele Norris also announced her resignation as a Post columnist, writing in a lengthy X thread, “I am deeply disappointed by The Post’s decision to reverse course and withhold a presidential endorsement in this election cycle when the excellent reporting throughout the entirety of the paper makes clear all that is at stake in the election and around the world.”

More reaction

Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has been one of the most outspoken politicians about the threat Trump poses. She was the chairwoman of a committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Speaking with New Yorker editor David Remnick at the 25th annual New Yorker Festival, Cheney said, “On the issue of The Washington Post, look, first of all, it’s fear. … When you have Jeff Bezos apparently afraid to issue an endorsement for the only candidate in the race who’s a stable responsible adult because he fears Donald Trump, that tells you why we have to work so hard to make sure that Donald Trump isn’t elected. And I also think why we ought to not forget what has happened, forget who’s taken brave and courageous stands. And I canceled my subscription to The Washington Post, just saying.”

On that topic

OK, since Cheney brought it up, let’s talk about those canceling their subscriptions to the Post. Reports are that the cancellations are in the thousands.

One editorial writer told Stelter, “I am overwhelmed with the number of heartfelt messages from readers canceling but expressing personal appreciation for what I do. It breaks my heart.”

But here’s the thing. As angry as readers might be, are they directing their anger and protest in the right direction? While one can understand readers being upset and wanting to show some form of protest, canceling subscriptions ultimately doesn’t hurt Bezos. Instead, it hurts many of the respected journalists at the Post who are just as upset as the readers.

In a thread on X, Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion for the Post, wrote, “My mom just told me she cancelled her subscription to The Washington Post. She reads every one of my stories. It was a heartbreaking call. I understand why she did it, but I asked her to reconsider. To anyone who has cancelled or is thinking about cancelling, here’s what I said: Post reporters had no part in this decision. But when you cancel, you are hurting us, not our owner. I feel lucky to work at a place that doesn’t blink when I say I need to fly to Texas to meet a woman whose life has been changed by an abortion ban. To document the impacts of Dobbs up close. I can only do that if we have subscribers who support us. Reporters in the Post newsroom will continue to do our jobs. We will report fearlessly on whoever becomes president, and so many other things that really matter, because we are independent and care deeply about holding the powerful to account. I completely understand if you’ve lost faith in our owner, but please, don’t lose faith in us. We have so much work to do.”

The disappearance of political endorsements

The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times aren’t the only papers sitting out endorsements for presidential candidates this year. My colleague, Rick Edmonds, writes how other papers also aren’t endorsing anyone for president, and the possible reasons behind it.

Edmonds talked to editors at four papers that are still endorsing candidates.

Edmonds then wrote, “I’m not a noncombatant on the flight of the regionals from presidential endorsements. The fashionable argument has become that voters should merely be informed by news and editorial pages and then decide for themselves. Fallacious? If they read the paper’s recommendation, as the executives I talked with suggested, voters will still decide for themselves.”

He added, “I get that these are polarized times (though maybe not uniquely so). But the idea is to avoid offending the half or so of the audience who will be voting for Trump. Being afraid of your own readers strikes me as wishy-washy. And wishy-washy is a bad place for news outlets to be.”

Feeling tired

The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper, who has gone around the country attending Trump rallies and interviewing attendees, appeared on Jen Psaki’s MSNBC show on Sunday morning and talked about how these rallies have changed.

Klepper told Psaki, “There’s less of an energy there. There’s not many people showing up. It feels tired. There’s definitely MAGA folks who are going around the loop and have been there a thousand times.”

Klepper mentioned a man who he has met who has gone to 93 of these rallies. Klepper added, “But it feels like the circus has been around to your town many, many times and not everybody is showing up for this last go-around.”