The media that covers media has been apoplectic the last few days, ever since The Washington Post announced it would not be endorsing anyone for President. The decision was apparently made by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who owns the paper, who fears that if Trump wins, he will seek retribution against any person or business who opposed him. That was a shock because Bezos has reportedly been a hands-off owner, infusing the paper with cash while not interfering with management’s decisions of what is and isn’t news.
But here’s the part the media that covers media isn’t saying: newspaper editorials don’t mean anything.
With just over a week to go until election day, whose minds are they changing? Most of the polls say Harris and Trump are tied at 48%, which leaves 4% of the voting populace supposedly undecided. Does anyone think those nitwits will make a decision based on what the editorial page of the Washington Post (or the LA Times, where the billionaire owner did the same thing) publishes? In a world where people get information from myriad sources every day, why would they think undecided voters are looking to the editorial pages of newspapers for an argument that will make them lean one way or the other?
I don’t like the idea of the owners of newspapers cowing to political bullies, but it’s not the editorial page that determines the greatness of a newspaper. It’s the reporting. The editorial page of the Washington Post didn’t bring down Richard Nixon. It was Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, doggedly pursuing every aspect of the Watergate story. Their words, featured on the front page for weeks on end, are what we remember — not what was published on the editorial page of those same issues.
There’s no doubt The Post and other media outlets should have been doing a better job of regularly informing the public about the very real threat Donald Trump poses to our country. That is what the media that covers media should be focusing on — the lack of continuous reportage on the no-longer-creeping fascism one presidential candidate promotes every day, along with the utter absence of denunciation from other members of his political party.
The several thousand Post subscribers who have cancelled their subscriptions are presumably not doing so based solely on their personal journalism ethics code. They’ve cancelled because The Post isn’t echoing their support of Harris. I don’t know how many Trump supporters pay to read The Post online, but I’d bet none of them have dropped their digital access.
People who have canceled their subscriptions are only hurting the writers and researchers who continue to work at The Post. Fewer dollars coming in means less money to spend on a high-quality staff, fewer assets with which to write about and reveal the truth. The irony is that many of those who did cancel then let the world know on Twitter — the website owned by a billionaire who does regulate content, particularly that which doesn’t support the extremist garbage he throws his weight behind.
Yes, it stinks that Bezos has shown cowardice in the face of Trump’s bullying. Just like CEOs of other companies who have scaled back or dissolved their DEI initiatives because of blowback from racist, misogynist right-wingers.
If Bezos had ordered The Post staff not to report on something or someone — or to print an editorial supporting Trump — that would be worthy of condemnation. Then other media outlets could express outrage on their editorial pages.
Where they wouldn’t change a thing.