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| Ann Telnaes |
We got slammed with the news that not one, but two, major newspapers are declining to make an endorsement for president.
When I first saw the news that the Washington Post had followed the Los Angeles Times, I was stunned. I got a chill. My very blood froze. Then I got a hard pit gnawing in my stomach. And I started to cry.
Our best defense against autocracy, the free press, the very bulwark of our democracy, was turning their backs.
This, more than anything else – more than TRUMP's blathering, more than the generals' warnings, more than federal indictments, and criminal convictions, more than Project 2025's filthy plan – made me fear for our country.
The Washington Post's slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is too true. To think, in reality it is just a few drops of ink on the top of a page of newsprint. It has no meaning anymore. It sickens me.
They are turning their backs on us! Cowards, turning their backs on defenders of democracy. Shay Moss and Lady Ruby, Cassidy Hutchinson, Christine Blasey Ford, Stormy Daniels, E Jean Carroll, many more, and all of the working journalists out there, too many heroes to list, are all being betrayed.
Each one of us who is willing to preserve our democracy, to speak out, to stand up, to take action, sometimes at the very peril to our lives, have been betrayed. Are we all on our own now?
The press is The People. They are our ears, our eyes, and our voice. If we lose the press, what do we have?
The press's job is to speak truth to power, and they failed. Such shame has been brought upon the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Freaking Post. Such shame.
After I had a good cry, a cuppa, and a kitty snuggle, I took action. Because I'm a woman of action and words, and I will not be silent on this.
I cancelled my Washington Post subscription. I cancelled my Los Angles Times subscription. And I wrote a letter to the editor of the LA Times. I told them what I told you (well, edited down to a publishable length).
Then I started to read the whys and wherefores – though no "why" can justify this cowardly act – and what others are thinking.
The whys: No surprise. Oligarchs hiding in fear
The billionaire owners of both papers strong-armed the editors to withhold endorsement, even as endorsements for Kamala Harris had been written and were ready to publish. Jeff Bezos, billionaire owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, alone made the decision to withhold endorsement. There was a bullshit explanation from the CEO William Lewis about returning to the newspaper's "roots," but nothing from Bezos himself.
On the other coast, billionaire Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong also made the decision for his paper to withhold endorsement. He has also been silent, but Soon-Shiong's daughter Nika Soon-Shiong speculates that it is because of Harris's views on the Israel/Gaza war.
The reality: they are afraid of what would happen to them if djt wins the election. There may be no bottom to the depth of the cost of that decision, especially if he wins.
What others are thinking: This is bullshit
Staff, readers, and others all are upset by these decisions. There have been mass subscription cancellations, staff resignations, and community condemnation.
So far, 18 columnists at the Washington Post signed a joint column protesting this action. Editorial staff resigned in protest.
Hundreds of Los Angeles Times staff also signed a protest letter. Many staff there resigned as well.
It is not the newspaper owners' job to direct the content of the newspaper. They are there as a safeguard to protect the newspaper's workings. Their role is to manage operations, not to direct content. In both these newspapers' cases, the owners are not newspaper people. They are not journalists. They are billionaires who bought a company.
It reminds me of the kurfuffle at our own small local newspaper here in my town. A few years after she bought the paper in the early 2000s, the Santa-Barbara News-Press's billionaire owner interfered with the newsroom's reporting. She wanted to protect a couple of her celebrity/millionaire cronies.
Staff resigned, readers boycotted, and the paper withered, becoming more and more right-wing before it died. The News-Press was the first, and one of only a handful in the country, to endorse Trump for president in 2016.
The paper ceased publication altogether and declared bankruptcy 17 years after the first protest resignations. Read the whole sad saga on Wikipedia.
Now that I revisit that, I realize perhaps that's part of my strong visceral reaction. Billionaires do not belong in newsrooms. When they do, bad things happen.
Oligarchs should not own the Free Press. When they do, it isn't free anymore.
It's a dark day for America.
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