Lower than two weeks earlier than Election Day, The Washington Put up mentioned Friday it could not endorse a candidate for president on this yr’s tightly contested race and would keep away from doing so sooner or later — a call instantly condemned by a former govt editor however one which the present writer insisted was “according to the values the Put up has at all times stood for.”

In an article posted on the entrance of its web site, the Put up — reporting by itself interior workings — additionally quoted unidentified sources inside the publication as saying that an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump had been written however not printed. These sources informed the Put up reporters that the corporate’s proprietor, billionaire Jeff Bezos, made the choice.

The Put up’s writer, Will Lewis, wrote in a column that the choice was truly a return to a practice the paper had years in the past of not endorsing candidates. He mentioned it mirrored the paper’s religion in “our readers’ skill to make up their very own minds.”

“We acknowledge that this can be learn in a variety of the way, together with as a tacit endorsement of 1 candidate, or as a condemnation of one other, or as an abdication of accountability. That’s inevitable,” Lewis wrote. “We don’t see it that means. We see it as according to the values the Put up has at all times stood for and what we hope for in a pacesetter: character and braveness in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of legislation, and respect for human freedom in all its facets.”

There was no speedy response from both marketing campaign.

The Put up isn’t the one one going this route

Lewis cited the Put up’s historical past in writing concerning the determination. In line with him, the Put up solely began often endorsing candidates for president when it backed Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The Put up mentioned the choice had “roiled” many on the opinion employees, which operates independently from the Put up’s newsroom employees — what is understood generally within the business as a “church-state separation” between those that report the information and those that write opinion.

The Put up’s transfer comes the identical week that the Los Angeles Occasions introduced the same determination, which triggered the resignations of its editorial web page editor and two different members of the editorial board. In that occasion, the Occasions’ proprietor, Patrick Quickly-Shiong, insisted he had not censored the editorial board, which had deliberate to endorse Harris.

“As an proprietor, I’m on the editorial board and I shared with our editors that possibly this yr we’ve a column, a web page, two pages, if we wish, of all the professionals and all of the cons and let the readers resolve,” Quickly-Shiong mentioned in an interview Thursday with Spectrum Information. He mentioned he feared endorsing a candidate would add to the nation’s division.

In August, the newly rebranded Minnesota Star Tribune additionally introduced it could now not endorse candidates. The paper is owned by billionaire Glen Taylor, who additionally owns the Minnesota Timberwolves. Its writer is Steve Grove, who was financial improvement commissioner within the administration of Gov. Tim Walz — Harris’ operating mate.

Many American newspapers have been dropping editorial endorsements in recent times. That’s largely as a result of at a time readership has been dwindling, they don’t wish to give remaining subscribers and information customers a purpose to get mad and cancel their subscriptions.

Martin Baron, the Put up’s govt editor from 2012 to 2021, was in command of its newsroom in 2013 when Bezos purchased the paper. Baron instantly condemned the choice on X Friday, saying it empowers Trump to additional intimidate Bezos and others. “That is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” he wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness at an establishment famed for braveness.”

It comes at a time when newspapers are struggling

The choices come at a fraught time for American media, newspapers specifically. Native information is drying up in lots of locations. And after being upended by the economics of the web and drastically evolving reader habits, the highest “legacy media” — together with the Put up, The New York Occasions and others — have been struggling to maintain up with a altering panorama.

Nowhere is that this extra true, maybe, than within the political area. The candidates this yr have been rejecting some mainstream interviews in favor of podcasts and different area of interest programming, and plenty of information organizations are vigorously ramping as much as fight misinformation in near-real time on Election Day, Nov. 5.

Trump, who for years referred to as the media protecting him “the enemy of the individuals,” has returned to such rhetoric in latest days. His vitriol specifically is geared toward CBS, whose broadcast license he has threatened to revoke.

On Thursday, at a rally in Arizona, he returned to the language explicitly as soon as extra.

“They’re the enemy of the individuals. They’re,” Trump mentioned to a jeering crowd. “I’ve been requested to not say that. I don’t wish to say it. And a few day they’re not going to be the enemy of the individuals, I hope.”

The Put up endorsed Trump’s Democratic rivals in 2016 and 2020, and Trump has typically denounced essential protection by the paper. On Friday, after Trump spoke in Austin, he greeted executives from Blue Origin, Bezos’ house exploration firm. Trump spoke briefly with Blue Origin’s CEO and vp of presidency relations. Some critics have publicly speculated that Bezos desires to keep away from antagonizing Trump.

For the Put up, the choice is for certain to generate debate past the information cycle. It appeared to acknowledge this with a word from the paper’s letters and group editor on the high of the feedback part on the writer’s column: “I do know lots of you’ll have robust emotions about this word from Mr. Lewis.”

Certainly, by midafternoon, the column had elicited greater than 7,000 feedback, many essential. Mentioned one, riffing off the Put up’s slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”: “Time to alter your slogan to `Democracy dies in broad daylight.’”

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Steve Karnowski in Minnesota and Jonathan J. Cooper in Arizona contributed to this report. Ted Anthony, director of recent storytelling and newsroom innovation on the AP, may be adopted at