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On Friday Washington Posts publisher, Will Lewis, announced that the paper would no longer provide presidential endorsements, after the paper’s journalists had already prepared an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Over a period of several weeks, a Post the staff told me, two Post board members, Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg, had been working on drafting a Harris endorsement. (None of them were contacted for this article.) “Normally we would have a meeting, review a draft, make suggestions, make edits,” the staffer told me. Editorial writers began feeling anxious a few weeks ago, according to staff; the process stopped. About a week ago, editorial page editor David Shipley told the editorial board that approval was on track, adding that “this is obviously something that our owner has an interest in.”

“We thought we were arguing over the language – not over whether there would be support.” Post said the staff. Saw it Postnews and opinion departments alike, were shocked Friday after Shipley told the editorial board at a meeting that it would not take a position after all. This represents the first time Post has been in a presidential endorsement since 1988.

The meeting was quickly followed by an opinion piece from publisher Lewis, who wrote: “We recognize that this will be read in a number of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility . It’s inevitable. We don’t see it that way.”

The decision follows one of my former colleague Mariel Garza, who resigned on Wednesday from his position as editorial editor at Los Angeles Times in protest against a decision by Patrick Soon-Shiong, the publisher, to block the editorial board’s plan to support Harris.

The decisions at both papers have angered staff, who point out that both papers have published editorials for more than nine years now detailing the threats Donald Trump poses to American democracy; his constant stream of falsehoods; his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021; his public policy; and his promises to become a dictator – at least for one – if influenced.

Ian Bassin, a democracy expert, calls these moves “anticipatory obedience”: fear among owners that if Trump wins, he could take revenge on companies that cross him. They noted that the leadership at CNN and Post changed after the Trump administration tried to block takeover of CNN’s parent company and tried to deny a cloud computing deal to Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns Post.

Sewell Chan joined Columbia Journalism Review as managing editor in 2024. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Texas Tribune from 2021 to 2024, when the nonprofit newsroom won its first National Magazine Award and was a Pulitzer finalist for the first time. From 2018 to 2021, he was deputy editor-in-chief and then editorial page editor at Los Angeles Timeswhere he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Chan worked on New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy editor and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at Washington Post year 2000.