Caving to Authoritarianism : WaPo Doesn't Endorse

It's entirely about a cowardly billionaire who doesn't want to risk Trump's ire should Trump be elected. And yes, if Harris had a big lead I bet WaPo endorses her rather than lose tens of thousands of subscribers. But there is a good chance Trump wins and the cowardly billionaire doesn't want to risk it.

 

Probably need to change it to past tense.

 

DJT has continued to hammer away at the press this year, in speeches and rallies, with concepts such as jailing journalists, rescinding broadcast licenses, and abolishing the FCC (or taking direct administration control of same). Along with his carrot and stick approach to billionaires, can anyone be surprised that newspaper owners not steeped in the traditions of American journalism would make decisions like WaPo and L A Times have?

 

If that's true then why stop at endorsing no one? Why not go all in and endorse Trump? It seems to me that this move hurts his candidate but doesn't really buy him any good will with Trump.

 

Because there's no way WaPo could get away with endorsing Trump. The backlash would be enormous and their staff would likely quit en masse. They probably thought they could play it down the middle and not endorse at all, giving some bogus reason about 'getting back to their roots', and not lose too many subscribers. Huge miscalculation on their part.

 

I've never met Jeff Bezos so I can't claim to know his mind so maybe you're right but, when I look at all the other organizations that have broken ranks and chosen not to endorse her, I don't see fear of retaliation as the motivating factor. Therefore, I don't see it as the motivating factor here either.

 

So why do you think WaPo editorial staff spent weeks drafting an endorsement of Harris only to have Bezos step in and kill it? Why now, this late in the game?

 

My first post in this thread said why it was killed. I'll save you the trouble of going back and looking it up.

As for "Why now, this late in the game?" Because things have begun to fall apart for Harris and even Democrats are waking up to this fact. An endorsement at this point is more likely to make the paper look stupid than it is to help her.

 

Maybe I don't. It seems to me that an endorsement is intended to help a candidate win election by lending the organization's good name to the candidate's cause. It also seems to me that the endorser is trusting the endorsee not to make them look stupid. Whether or not that's "what an endorsement is" or not I can't say.

 

Things have not begun to fall apart for Harris. The polls have barely changed in weeks. It's a toss up. Bezos is a coward and squelched his own editorial board's endorsement of Harris. It backfired on him badly and he looks really stupid. Watch for him to sell the paper (at a big loss) in the next year or 2. WaPo's readership leans heavily left. The subscribers are not coming back and good luck getting new ones.

 

Neocon WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin hailed the courage of an LA Times staffer who resigned, Sewell Chan:

“Bravo. All respect.” Followed by, “and where are the rest of them?”

Now that the WaPo has declined to endorse, LA Times staffers should retspond "AFTER YOU JENNIFER."

She's going nowhere, of course

 

Newspapers have a long history of backing a candidate that ends up losing. WaPo is now “looking stupid” and the words cowardice are used that they aren’t backing a candidate. To the point people are cancelling subscriptions and key staff are quitting.

 

Bezos has businesses dependent on the fed gov for $ billions in work and contracts. I think even maga would agreed trump is vindictive and becoming unhinged. WaPo endorsement would increase the odds trump goes after Bezos (he still might). That could impact thousands of employees and investors. A difficult choice.
probably a good reason a big-time player that is heavily invested in other businesses shouldn’t choose to own a media outlet.

 

They had a four year plan and got impatient.

 

Does WaPo have 10k subscribers?

 

Well the piece written by the publisher about why they are not making an endorsement has more than 32,000 comments and about 90% of them are people saying they cancelled their subscription. One of them was me.