WASHINGTON

Will Lewis, publisher of The Washington Post, announced Friday that the newspaper will not make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election.

WaPo’s non-endorsement followed news that the Los Angeles Times would not endorse the race for the White House.

Two blue-state newspapers owned by two billionaires – Jeff Bezos owns The Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong owns the Times – pulled the plug on expected endorsements of Kamala Harris.

Earthquake.

“The Washington Post will not be endorsing a presidential candidate in this election,” Lewis wrote. “Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not supporting presidential candidates.”

“Just … impossible timing for this announcement to be read as a statement of principle,” Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith responded to X.

On Fox News, media guy Howard Kurtz slammed the Post for “hypocrisy,” observing that Bezos “does a lot of business with the federal government.”

I agree.

The timing of The Post’s first non-endorsement for president in 36 years doesn’t work in Lewis’ favor.

“Why take a principled stand now, 11 days before the election, rather than months ago?” Politico Playbook PM’s Eli Okun asked.

Okun also noted that The Washington Post picked up a nod from the White House after it endorsed Democrats Angela Alsobrooks, who is running for the Senate in Maryland, and Eugene Vindman, who is running for a congressional seat in Virginia.

Since most readers have never been a member of an editorial board, I’ll provide some context here. There is a firewall between the news site and public opinion.

Newspaper editorial endorsements (again, separate from the news page) are important because they can help voters navigate state, local and down-ballot contests with candidates who are not household names. Or they can serve as markers for how not to vote.

The President’s recommendations are different. An endorsement is less likely to change a vote, but it demonstrates a newspaper’s values.

Or lack thereof.

As NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik noted on the X, the non-supportive remarks arrive “at a time of heightened concern over whether news outlets (sic) are pulling out all the stops to appease Trump in the final days of a presidential contest.”

As owners, Bezos and Soon-Shiong have every right to control their newspapers’ support. Just like protesting staff, everyone has the right to quit and air their grievances, as some LA Times veterans are doing.

“I’m resigning because I want to make it clear that I’m not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people have to stand up. That’s how I stand up,” LA Times editorial editor Mariel Garza told Columbia Journalism Review.

Garza stood up, and I’m sure it was painful.

Part of me thinks there’s a lesson here for left-leaning journalists who haven’t had to face the reality that not everyone works the way they do – even their left-leaning bosses.

But really, after spending nearly a decade furiously bashing Trump, the papers’ failure to support Harris must have landed the staff like a body blow. Meanwhile, conservatives everywhere are reaching for the popcorn and enjoying the show.

To outsiders, WaPo’s motto since 2017, “Democracy dies in darkness,” may have seemed vain. Now insiders have to see it too.

For a large part of the public, newspaper editorials can seem like homework. But for the individuals who write them, they have meaning. And consequences.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at [email protected]. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.