JONATHAN TURLEY: Why I'm congratulating the Washington Post
As someone who used to write regularly for the newspaper, it has been a long time since I have had an occasion to say this but . . . Bravo, Washington Post.
This week, the Post announced that not only would it not endorse a candidate this year, but it would not do so in the future. Over two decades ago, I wrote a column calling for newspapers to end the practice of all election endorsements. (Yes, before all things seemed to turn on how you feel about Donald Trump). I have continued to push the press to abandon this pernicious practice.
When I first came out against political endorsements, the media had not taken the plunge into advocacy journalism, which is now strangling the life out of this industry.
As former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has declared, "all journalism is activism."
After a series of interviews with over 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: "Objectivity has got to go."
The result has been trust in the media plummeting to an all-time low. Revenues and readership are falling as outlets struggle to survive. Yet, reporters are still refusing to reconsider the abandonment of neutrality and objectivity.
Recently, Post owner Jeff Bezos brought in Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis, who promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom. He told the staff, "Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore."
The response was calls for Lewis and other editors to be canned. These reporters would rather give up their very jobs than their bias.
Now Lewis is under fire again after announcing, "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates."
The Washington Post Guild immediately went ballistic at the thought of not openly supporting Kamala Harris, though many would point out that the Post has hardly been subtle in its coverage on that point.
The Guild expressed alarm at the thought of leaving readers to reach their own conclusions "a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election." According to the staff, the Post needs "to help guide readers," and "according to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos."
Perish the thought that the Post would start to raise free-range readers left to reach their own conclusions.
Former executive editor Martin "Marty" Baron and others went into absolute vapors. Baron declared, "This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty."
Others retreated into anonymity to denounce their management, with some making precisely the case for not making such an endorsement: "It very disingenuously draws false equivalencies. This is not, for example, Kamala Harris vs. Mitt Romney. This is Kamala Harris against someone who tried to disenfranchise the electorate last time."
It is ironic since, at the time, Romney was portrayed as a fascist, as were prior Republican nominees.
One of the most curious responses came from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: "This is what Oligarchy is about. Jeff Bezos, the 2nd wealthiest person in the world and the owner of the Washington Post, overrides his editorial board and refuses to endorse Kamala."
An oligarchy is defined as "government by the few." That is precisely what the public sees in an effective state media and why "Let’s Go Brandon!" became a type of "Yankee Doodling" of the political and media establishment.
Sanders' objection is that the owner decided not to exercise the power of the few but instead left the choice to voters. According to Sanders, that is the definition of oligarchy in declining to act as an oligarch.
As discussed years ago, the decision of newspapers to engage in political endorsements has had a corrosive influence for years. It destroys the separation between newspapers and those who are supposed to be the subjects of their investigatory and journalistic work.
My prior column called for the termination of not just presidential endorsements, though it is a good start. There should be a commitment to total neutrality in all elections, from judges to senators to presidents.
The Washington Post is not alone. The Los Angeles Times has declined to make an endorsement, which also led to a staff revolt.
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The decision not to endorse in this election could prove a critical moment for mainstream media in turning the corner on the era of advocacy journalism. While skeptical, I genuinely hope that Bezos has decided to reconsider the course of the Post. We need the Post and the rest of the mainstream media. The media plays a critical role in our democracy as a neutral source of information on government abuse and corruption.
However, that role also needs the trust of the public. Otherwise, as Lewis told the Post staff, "no one is reading your stuff."
That is evident from the very closeness of this election. After years of unrelenting anti-Trump coverage and a billion-dollar war chest to sell Harris to the public, the country is still divided right down the middle.
The Post and other papers are writing for each other and core Democratic readers. The rest of America is moving on to new sources of information on social media and elsewhere.
For those of us who loved the old Post and want our "Fourth Estate" to be strong, this is a meaningful start.
So Bravo, Washington Post.