In Surprise, Washington Post Won't Endorse

The Los Angeles Times isn't the only major US newspaper steeped in Election 2024 controversy. Now, the Washington Post has also stepped into the fray, like its West Coast counterpart refusing to endorse a presidential candidate—something the paper hasn't done since the late '80s. "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates," wrote Will Lewis, the paper's publisher and CEO, in a Friday op-ed. NPR reports that the last time the paper didn't endorse anyone for the Oval Office was in 1988. Staffers apparently learned of the move ahead of Lewis' public announcement from editorial pages editor David Shipley at a "tense meeting," per NPR.

• Publisher's explainer: In his own op-ed, Lewis cites a 1960 opinion piece from the editorial board that explained why they weren't endorsing a presidential candidate that year, and hadn't in the past handful of elections before that (they made an exception in 1952, for Eisenhower). "We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility," Lewis writes now. "That is inevitable."
• But...: However, Lewis adds, "We don't see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values the Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects." Lewis notes that the Post supports "our readers' ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions."

• For Harris? Meanwhile, it looks as if there had been an endorsement already in the works, for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, with an OK to proceed with a draft from Shipley—until a plan was carried out to squash it, a source tells Sewell Chan of the Columbia Journalism Review. "We thought we were dickering over language—not over whether there would be an endorsement" at all, the source, said to be a Post staffer, tells Chan over how the draft had mysteriously stalled before Lewis' announcement.
• Bezos: Gizmodo notes there's been no public word yet from Post owner Jeff Bezos on the matter. But the Post, in its own news story on the issue, quotes sources as saying word to kill it came down from Bezos himself.
• Baron: Marty Baron, the paper's famous former executive editor, didn't hold back on his own feelings. "This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty," he wrote on X, noting that Trump "will see this as an invitation to further intimidate [Bezos] (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
• 'Fear' of Trump? Democracy expert Ian Bassin calls such a move an example of "anticipatory obedience"—aka a "fear by owners that if Trump wins he could take vengeance on companies that cross him," per the CJR.

(More Washington Post stories.)