This week, two major newspapers declined to endorse a candidate for president of the United States. This was especially troubling because they are two of the most widely read and important papers in the country — the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
This unprecedented action came only 11 days before a presidential election that is clearly one of the most consequential in a century. This move away from the major new outlets living up to their responsibility to provide not just truthful and unbiased news, but also guidance on major issues of our times, is a symptom of the corporatization of the news media.
Over the past two decades, delivery platforms for news have diversified, with websites and social media platforms presenting news and information to your phone and laptop. As a result, advertising dollars for older traditional media like print newspapers, magazines and traditional broadcast TV networks have shrunk substantially as advertisers move away from these legacy platforms. As the ad dollars have declined, we have witnessed the continued erosion of local media, leading to a trend where local newspapers are being bought up by venture capital companies and gutted for their resources. As a result, Americans have lost much of their community voice through local newspapers.
Here in Boston, over the past three decades, we have lost most of our local and regional print outlets. One of the first to go was the legendary Boston Phoenix, soon followed by many of the 14 Tab newspapers that covered local news in Boston, Brookline and Newton as well as other Massachusetts communities. Though some of the Tab newspapers have survived as online entities after absorption by the Community Newspaper Company, there is still a considerable hole left in local coverage.
This is because local papers generally bring a fresh and honest look at most issues without the manipulation of large companies or power bases that unfortunately wield an outsized influence in our country’s mass news media.
We all remember Fox News settling a lawsuit filed against them by the Dominion voting machines company for $800 million for knowingly lying that Dominion’s products caused electoral fraud — all in an effort to mollify their viewers and maintain the number of eyeballs glued to Fox’s fake news telecasts.
And now we are seeing another major ethical line being crossed in the national landscape of journalism. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post’s failure to endorse Kamala Harris for president after all their non-biased news coverage clearly indicated to their editorial boards that she was the best choice for the White House sent shockwaves across the industry.
In both cases, the papers’ billionaire owners decided to block their editorial boards’ decision to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket. This clear violation of journalistic ethics — to curry favor from a political campaign that bases itself on lies and is committed to dismantling our democratic way of life — is very scary. After the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, put out a statement saying that for the first time in 26 years the paper would not be endorsing a candidate, the backlash was swift. Some 200,000 digital subscribers have left the Post, and the Times’ editorial editor, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest over corporate interference in the journalistic process.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza told a reporter. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.” The paper also lost Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer Robert Greene.
LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said in a recent interview, “I think my fear is, if we chose either one that it would just add to the division.” The billionaire owner of the paper is registered as an Independent. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post since 2013, wrote, “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.” The choice was made after the paper had drafted an endorsement of Kamala Harris.
But critics point to worries by the owners about the impact of a Harris endorsement on their other business interests in case Trump wins back the Oval Office and decides to punish those who stood up for his electoral opponent.
Journalistic courage still exists in America, but it’s a diminishing commodity. According to the Poynter Institute, a global nonprofit geared to strengthening the ethical practice and value of journalism, “independent, locally owned organizations dominate the shrinking list of holdouts. Here, too, disengagement is becoming a trend.” This is an alarming development at a time when the country is on the precipice of choosing a leader.
Because of decisions from a pair of plutocrat newspapers owners, two of America’s premier news outlets have failed to live up to their responsibilities – first, to search for the real truth, and second, to use that truth to shape their audience’s actions and opinions “without fear or favor.”
It is also important to keep in mind that one of the symptoms of rising fascism is the intimidation and silencing of the media. Donald Trump’s own former chief of staff warned us just last week of his former boss’s dangerous embrace of authoritarianism.
It’s time we push back on journalistic profiles in cowardice and remind media moguls of what my mom used to say to me every day when I went to work over my 27-year career at WBZ-TV/CBS 4 Boston: “You have the privilege to present news to the American people, and with that comes the responsibility to be a true journalist. If you fail in those responsibilities, you fail the American people, and that includes you and your family as well.”
For those who have not yet voted, the choice in next week’s election is clear: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz represent the best future for our country. And no choice by billionaire news outlet owners to stick their heads in the sand to hide from that reality for personal gain is going to change that.
