‘A lot of sensitivity around adjacency’: Why media is afraid of Trump-Harris fallout
For the upcoming US election, both The Washington Post and LA Times have opted not to officially endorse a presidential candidate, decisions that editorial teams from both papers claim were made by their billionaire owners.
The Washington Post announced over the weekend it would no longer make endorsements at this or future presidential elections.
William Lewis, publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post, said the paper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates”, which started in 1976 when it backed Democrat Jimmy Carter.
“We recognise that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis wrote in an editorial published on Friday.
“That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way,” he wrote, summarising that “our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent.”
However, journalists from the Post revolted against the decision, which they said was made by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, and followed the drafting of an endorsement for Kamala Harris. The Post’s editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, resigned on the same day Lewis’ editorial was published.
“An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution,” a note signed by eleven Washington Post journalists said.
The LA Times journalists were similarly up-in-arms after owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked a Harris endorsement during the week, prompting three of the Times’ editors to resign, including editorial page editor Mariel Garza.
LA Times staff wrote an open letter to Soon-Shiong, saying: “Whether the newspaper endorses a candidate is ultimately the owner’s prerogative. However, the process must be clear and transparent to readers.”
Last week, global chief revenue officer of Bloomberg Media, Christine Cook, told Mumbrella that their publication Bloomberg Businessweek was also forced to tread carefully around the presidential race.
“Brad Stone, the editor of Businessweek, got an interview with Donald Trump on the Thursday or Friday before the Biden debate that went so terribly,” Cook told Mumbrella while appearing on the one-on-one podcast.
“And that Businessweek issue covered Trump’s proposed cabinet, who was going to be in place.”
Despite being what Cook called “thorough coverage… tracking the constituents and the policies that were moving minds”, Bloomberg Businessweek was still worried it would be read as an endorsement.
Christine Cook
“The coverage that we did of Trump, in America, it can be tricky… we went ahead and called everybody and said, ‘You know, Donald Trump’s going to be on the cover’, because there’s a lot of sensitivity around adjacency, and some of those brands said that they didn’t want to be there.”
Cook reasons they don’t want to be associated with any Trump coverage, “because of a lot of the stuff that actually happens on user-generated social platforms, which can be uncontrollable and are not into the guise of a managing editor who has a style book”.
“It’s a shame because there was actually really good content about what a Trump administration would look like – not some high-blood-pressure, frothy commentary,” she said.
Cook also explained that Bloomberg Businessweek followed with a Kamala Harris cover story, “because we feel like it’s our obligation”.
Listen to the full podcast here.
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