US Election 2024: Why ‘Legacy Media’ Outlets Have Ditched The Tradition Of Endorsing Candidates?

Last Updated:October 29, 2024, 17:02 IST

US Election 2024: Critics have alleged that Jeff Bezos (owner of The Washington Post) and Patrick Soon-Shiong (owner of The Los Angeles Times) do not want to annoy Donald Trump as polls suggest he has a 50-50 chance of victory

The Washington Post's editorial board had already drafted an endorsement for Kamala Harris. But the decision to not endorse a presidential candidate this time came from The Post owner Jeff Bezos. (Reuters Image)

The Washington Post had announced last week that it will not endorse a presidential candidate this year, breaking its decades’ old tradition. The decision has sparked widespread outrage among the staffers.

“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

The Post editorial board had already drafted an endorsement for Vice-President and Democrat nominee Kamala Harris at the time. The decision to not endorse any candidate was made by newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, The New York Times reported.

Why US Media Outlets Endorse Candidates?

On October 11, 1860, The New York Times endorsed Abraham Lincoln, who went on to serve as the 16th President from 1861-65.

In the US, the right to freedom of speech and the press is protected under the First Amendment. This allows newspapers and other outlets to weigh in on the issues and candidates who best align with their editorial values or best serve the public interest.

Endorsing candidates is a common practice in US newspapers in the opinion sections. However, this does not mean that the paper campaigns for a candidate. News organisations are largely obligated to uphold the journalistic ethics of providing fair and unbiased coverage.

Usually, there are separate editorial boards within the organisation that handles opinions and endorsements, distinct from their news teams.

Newspapers endorse candidates to highlight the values they consider important in public office, positioning themselves as influencers on civic issues. By endorsements, newspapers extend their role in society by promoting informed, engaged voters. Outlets consider factors such as a candidate’s stance on critical issues, personal integrity, experience, and, in many cases, how their policy goals align with the media organisation’s editorial values.

In India, the practice of endorsing a candidate does not exist.

Do Candidates Endorsed By Newspapers Always Win?

In 1897, almost all New York newspapers backed the losing candidates, according to a report by The New York Times. However, in almost all presidential elections from 1940 to 2016, the candidate who received the most newspaper endorsements did win the race to the White House.

Why Are The Post And LA Times Not Endorsing Candidates?

Lewis cited the Post’s history in writing about the decision to not endorse any candidate this time. He said The Post only started regularly endorsing candidates for president when it backed Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The Post said the decision had “roiled” many on the opinion staff, which operates independently from the Post’s newsroom staff — what is known commonly in the industry as a “church-state separation” between those who report the news and those who write opinion.

The Los Angeles Times took a similar decision, which triggered resignations of its editorial page editor and two other members of the editorial board. The Times’ owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, insisted he had not censored the editorial board, which had planned to endorse Harris.

“As an owner, I’m on the editorial board and I shared with our editors that maybe this year we have a column, a page, two pages, if we want, of all the pros and all the cons and let the readers decide,” Soon-Shiong said in an interview Thursday with Spectrum News. He said he feared endorsing a candidate would add to the country’s division.

Critics have alleged that Bezos and Soon-Shiong have business reasons to not annoy Trump as polls suggest the Republican candidate has a 50-50 chance of victory. Bezos’s company Amazon has billions of dollars in cloud computing contracts with the US federal government, and Blue Origin, his rocket company, has contracts with the Space Force and NASA. Amazon also faces an antitrust lawsuit that the Biden administration brought in 2023.

In August, the newly rebranded Minnesota Star Tribune also announced it would no longer endorse candidates. The paper is owned by billionaire Glen Taylor, who also owns the Minnesota Timberwolves. Its publisher is Steve Grove, who was economic development commissioner in the administration of Gov. Tim Walz — Harris’ running mate.

With dwindling readership, many newspapers are also not endorsing candidates as they don’t want to upset the remaining readers or subscribers to cancel their subscriptions.

Top “legacy media” including The Post, The New York Times and others have been struggling to keep up with a changing landscape of news business, combating the economies of the internet and evolving reader habits.

News explainers US Election 2024: Why ‘Legacy Media’ Outlets Have Ditched The Tradition Of Endorsing Candidates?