As L.A. Times and Washington Post Kill Presidential Endorsements, Do Editorial Pages Still Matter?

The landscape around presidential endorsements looks a great deal different this year — and may for many cycles to come. 

After the Los Angeles Times’ owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked the paper’s editorial board from its planned endorsement of Kamala Harris (prompting the resignation of editorials editor Mariel Garza), the Washington Post’s leadership announced that they will as a matter of policy no longer endorse presidential candidates. “Our job at The Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds,” wrote William Lewis, the paper’s publisher and CEO.

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This is a precarious moment for news organizations across the board — even before one considers the mitigating factor of what a Donald Trump restoration, with a vengeance-happy leader in control of the federal government, might mean for papers and for their parent companies. (Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos certainly has a fair amount to lose should Trump turn his attention in the direction of Amazon’s federal contracts.) It seems apparent that media literacy is at something of a low moment, which means that — and this is true to an extent on both sides — opinion pieces are read as declarations of purpose on behalf of the reporting staff of the paper, as opposed to (in reality) writing done outside the remit of the paper’s newsgathering staff. The so-called “Chinese wall” between news and opinion is a standard feature of newspapers, and one that it is easy to overlook when angry at the failing Washington Post for what one might perceive as their biased coverage. It is also easy to forget, since canceling an L.A. Times subscription over Soon-Shiong’s decision — as readers have been doing in droves — has the unfortunate effect of punishing the news side as well as the opinion side. An endorsement becomes just another cudgel to hit reporters with. (It should perhaps not be surprising that outlets associated with the conservative cause feel no such anxiety; Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post placed its endorsement of Trump on today’s front page.) 

The upside of endorsing in a presidential race is in setting forth the values of the paper’s editorial page as it pertains to all sorts of issues — it’s less a meaningful effort to convince voters, perhaps, than a sort of “In This House We Believe…” sign. After all, when it comes to the job of convincing, the newspaper endorsement has been in something like crisis for at least two presidential cycles. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 57 endorsements from the nation’s 100 largest newspapers; Donald Trump received two, and won the election. And in 2020, the New York Times — in the crowded Democratic primary, a race where the nation’s standard-bearing mainstream newspaper was poised to make an impact — dithered, endorsing two candidates, both of whom lost to Joe Biden. (A televised special about the endorsement featured a revealing moment in which a Times building security guard fawned over Biden, a candidate the board never seemed to seriously consider.) Endorsements need not be viewed solely in terms of their efficacy, but it’s not hard to wonder what the upside is. 

All of this is unfortunate. (Although none of it is quite as frustrating as the New York Times’ move away from endorsing local candidates, in races where voters generally have far less information and have long trusted the Times’ perspective.) The piece that was underway at the L.A. Times sounds like a worthwhile enough explication of Harris’ virtues as a candidate — certainly a better idea, as these things go, than the piece Soon-Shiong has said he requested, which he wanted to feature “a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate [sic].” (What does Soon-Shiong think “opinion” writing is for?) And the endorsement’s spiking is both unfortunate in principle for those who believe in editorial independence and has provided the Trump campaign a piece of ammunition. 

The whole state of affairs stinks. And what’s most saddening about it, perhaps, is the dawning awareness that none of it matters — inasmuch as media will sway this election, it’s a war between coconut memes and doctored videos. The move away from endorsing candidates reads, in the moment, as an attempt to appease Trump, sure. But it also makes clear that, at least at a leadership level, newspapers no longer believe they’re being read in good faith. The worst part is that they are almost certainly correct.