Friday, I started looking at a social media site I rarely visit after I learned that The Washington Post declined to endorse a presidential candidate. One of the first things I saw was this film still from the 1976 movie All The President’s Men, in which the characters’ grim expressions probably mirrored my reaction to this news:
Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford portraying Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; along with Jason Robards as Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee; Jack Warden as Harry Rosenfeld, the assistant managing editor who supervised Woodward and Bernstein; and Martin Balsam as Howard Simons, the managing editor.
The real Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate period:
Fiction meets fact:
Katharine Meyer Graham presided over The Washington Post, her family’s newspaper, as publisher from 1963 to 1991. That includes the paper’s coverage of the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and convictions of many Watergate co-conspirators.
The Washington Post is now owned by the second-wealthiest man in the world, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. A source close to Washington Post leadership claimed to Fox News Digital that Bezos was not involved in the decision. However, a separate source spoke with Fox News Digital and believes otherwise, citing The Post’s own reporting claiming the billionaire directly intervened.
Reactions to the news were swift; within 24 hours, more than 2000 subscriptions to The Post had been canceled. There were dozens of immediate public reactions shared across the news media from columnists, reporters, journalists, and political analysts, including this joint statement from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:
“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 12 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.”
Former Post executive editor Martin Baron, who led the paper while Trump was president, said in a text message to The Post: “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
Here are quotes from the news side of the paper in reaction to the announcement:
“An endorsement of Harris had been drafted by Post editorial page staffers but had yet to be published, according to two sources briefed on the sequence of events who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner–Amazon founder Jeff Bezos– according to the same sources.”
“A non-endorsement would have made sense if it had been announced before the nominees were known. But doing it 11 days before the election suggests Bezos is worried he’d lose government contracts if Trump wins. So it signals intimidation works,” a current Post staffer told Fox News Digital. “Trump certainly caused trouble for Bezos in his presidency by killing a big cloud computing contract and messing with the Amazon postal contract. So [Bezos] knows how expensive a second term might be if Trump were mad at our coverage.”
The Post’s Guild statement in reaction to the decision:
Much has been made of the paper’s official slogan, adopted in 2017: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Indeed.
Out of the 80-plus newspaper endorsements for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, a few of the notable ones include Winston-Salem Chronicle, New York Times, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, The Las Vegas Sun, Los Angeles Sentinel, Seattle Times, The Star-Ledger, Tennessee Tribune, Scientific American, and San Antonio Express.
Meanwhile, the fewer than ten media endorsements for Trump include New York Post, The Washington Times, and Las Vegas Review-Journal.
At The Los Angeles Times, the man in charge is Patrick Soon-Shiong, another billionaire, who blocked the paper from endorsing California’s own Kamala Harris for president, as its board was reportedly planning to do, resulting in at least three editorial board members’ resignations.
Guess today wasn’t a silent day.
It all feels like a bit of history repeating, when that sort of power intimidating and silencing not just the free press but also the general public is in abundance. Like when the Senate allows a not yet unmasked Sith to have Complete and Total Power TM, and democracy ends, with applause. Or, a King -vs- Colonial property causing intolerable acts and a war for independence. Or, the Nazies burn the books and start systematic genocidal exterminations. Or, I get those Warrington stares either from being a hyper kid or wearing a rainbow tie-dyed t-shirt or “Treat everyone with kindness” in rainbow font.
If the fascist horde gets away with putting their fascist leader back in office, said horde will find out how little their needs, opinions, and lives matter. I don’t wish that on them. I feel sad for them. I do wish everyone didn’t have to endure it with them.
There are so many reasons my life will have zero value under that regime. I’m old. I can’t reproduce for them or provide labor they can exploit for money. I have chronic illnesses that require care and medication. I disagree with everything they stand for (though, in fact, they stand for very little other than their own self-interest).
The sad thing is that so many media sources have a axe to grind. I don’t believe anything that the Murdoch Empire churns out, for example. Ideally, news sources should be impartial, but of course they are not. However, when faced with the the likes of Hitler, or Putin, or Trump, however, it seems irresponsible (or cowardly) not to have an opinion. What really puzzles me is how anyone who is not white or male can support Trump? I guess one only needs to look for the rise of Fascism in Europe last century to see a warning from history?
Musk should never have been allowed to buy Twitter. One only has to look how he stirred-up the riots in the UK to see how he has abused that. I’m never likely to be in the income bracket to afford a Tesla car, but his behaviour this year has assured that I will never buy his product – online or in the car showroom. I guess one can only be grateful that he wasn’t born in the US…
Oh, Musk absolutely savaged Twitter. It’s mostly a platform for haters now, and somehow the algorithms disfavor longtime users who have always maintained a large and engaged readership. When Musk purchased it, I went back and deleted every one of my Tweets from years and years. Now and then, a group of them will pop back up, probably because a different source is being used to back up, but I delete them again. It was hard to do that–I had a lot of fun history there with friends and readers of my/our books.
The only reason I maintain an account there is I don’t want anyone else to use my name/identity. (One time, long ago, someone emailed me and demanded I close my account because it is his sister’s name, too, and she wanted to use it. Um… No?)
Ha! It’s amazing the front some people have. I wonder what it feels like to be so entitled?