Widespread anger and shock gripped demócrata America over the weekend following the news that the Washington Posthome of the Watergate scandal revelation, the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers will now not endorse Kamala Harris for president. But the angry responses were quickly replaced by two pressing questions: How did it happen, and what would be the best way for readers to protest?
At the center of the storm is William Lewis, the British journalist who became Washington Post editor and CEO in January. The 55-year-old north Londoner announced the decision to hire staff on Friday in terms that evoked the traditions of the title.
The newspaper, he said, was simply returning to its roots by refusing to endorse a presidential candidate. This was a return to the non-endorsement convention that Mail He resigned 48 years ago to support Democrat Jimmy Carter. “We had it right before that, and this is what we're going back to,” Lewis said.
Among the first public reactions was a call to unsubscribe that quickly trended on social media #CancelWaPo, along with a series of attacks for not taking a stand against Donald Trump, including from comedian Steve Martin, the actor Mark Hamill and the Watergate Reporters, Bob. Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
Woodward and Bernstein, whose Watergate report and subsequent book served as the basis for the award-winning film. All the president's mensaid: “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days before the 2024 presidential elections ignores the Washington PostDonald Trump's overwhelming journalistic evidence of the threat he represents to democracy.
“Under the ownership of Jeff Bezos, the Washington PostThe Trump news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage that a second Trump presidency could do to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially at this point. of the electoral process.”
The paper's regular editor, Robert Kagan, resigned on Friday. Last year he wrote a column titled: “The Trump Dictatorship: How to Stop It,” and has also argued that the former president could “destroy” democracy if he is re-elected.
Cartoon page editors in the Washington Post They got their revenge on Saturday, posting a dark, scratched image by Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Ann Telnaes. The grim panorama was titled “Democracy dies in darkness,” the Trump era newspaper's own slogan. Bezos, who is believed to have denied the newspaper's editorial board the freedom to give a political endorsement, has not commented.
“The moment of Mail The decision to endorse seems cowardly and undermines the independence it seeks to defend,” said Marcus Brauchli, who edited the newspaper from 2008 to 2012. “This is a horrible own goal,” Brauchli added. “There are perfectly valid reasons a newspaper could give for not endorsing a presidential candidate. He Mail He offered none, and his timing was horrible and seems, whatever the reasoning, cowardly or cowardly.”
A newspaper editor told the Columbia Journalism Review Editorial work around an endorsement was underway just a week ago. “We thought we were arguing about language, not whether there would be an endorsement,” he said. Mail said the employee.
The decision, the Review “It seems to us that it is what Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale University, calls 'anticipatory obedience.'” The phrase describes, in Snyder's words, “you are already giving your power to the would-be authoritarian.”
This follows a comparable decision earlier in the week by the Los Angeles Instanceswhich caused the resignation of several members of the editorial board. That decision seemed to come from Los Angeles Instances owner, Dr. Patrick Quickly-Shiong, a biotech billionaire.
The tradition of an endorsement dates back to the days when titles were formally attached to political parties, says Bob Thompson, a media professor at Syracuse University.
“It seems strange that newspapers seemingly provide objective reporting and then step back and have the editorial page and the newspaper itself endorse it. Television doesn't do it. The question is: why are these choices made explicit?”
after newsletter promotion
The final days of this election are marked by growing bitterness and preemptive political recrimination.
This weekend, many American commentators are pointing the finger directly at Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who owns the Washington Post since summer 2013.
It is argued that he now suspects that Trump can win on November 5 and that he could take presidential-scale revenge on the businesses of Bezos and Amazon.
While Bezos, not Amazon, owns the newspaper, Amazon is a major government contractor. In 2021, the US government announced the creation of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Functionality contract with Amazon Net Providers, the company's most trusted profitable sector.
The Defense Department's agreement with AWS, the government said, was “designed to make cloud services and capabilities available at all classification levels and across all security domains” and is “key to enabling critical capabilities.” of the combatants.”
Lewis made the newspaper's position clear in an op-ed about the decision, which he said was “consistent with the values that Mail “He has always defended.”
He wrote: “Character and courage in the service of the American ethic, reverence for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. “We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make their own decisions about this most consequential of American decisions: who to vote for as the next president.”
Lewis, who was knighted on the recommendation of his former political boss, Boris Johnson, is a former editor of the Daily Telegraphand previously spent six years in New York as editor of the Wall Road Diary.
Upon arrival at MailHe inherited his first executive editor, Sally Buzbee, but she resigned a few months later, in June. He is believed to have opposed his new boss's attempts to suppress a story about his involvement in the aftermath of Britain's newspaper hacking scandal.
When he was put in charge of the company, Lewis said, “We're going to expand. “We are going to get our arrogance back.”
2BC">Source link