“Washington Post” stirs up anger in liberal America over neutral voting stance | Washington Post

Widespread anger and shock swept liberal America over the weekend following news that the Washington PostHome of the Watergate scandal revelation, the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers will now not support Kamala Harris for president. But the angry reactions were quickly replaced by two pressing questions: How did this happen and how could readers best protest?

At the center of the storm is William Lewis, the future British journalist Washington Post Publisher and CEO in January. The 55-year-old North Londoner announced the decision to the team on Friday in a phrase that was reminiscent of the traditions of the title.

The newspaper, he said, was in the process of returning to its roots by refusing to endorse a presidential candidate. This was a return to the convention of non-advocacy post gave up supporting Democrat Jimmy Carter 48 years ago. “We were close to it and this is what we’re coming back to,” Lewis said.

The first public reactions included a call to cancel, which quickly became the #CancelWaPo social media trend, as well as a series of attacks on the failure to take a stand against Donald Trump, including from comedian Steve Martin, actor Mark Hamill and Watergate journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Woodward and Bernstein, whose Watergate reporting and subsequent book formed the basis for the award-winning film All the president's mensaid: “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial team, but this decision eleven days before the 2024 presidential election ignores that.” Washington PostOur own overwhelming reports demonstrate the threat that Donald Trump poses to democracy.

“Leaded by Jeff Bezos Washington PostTrump's intelligence department has used its ample resources to thoroughly examine the dangers and damage that a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy, and that makes this decision all the more surprising and disappointing, especially so late in the electoral process .”

The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Robert Kagan, resigned on Friday. Last year he wrote a column headlined, “The Trump Dictatorship: How to Stop It,” and he also argued that the former president could “destroy” democracy if re-elected.

Cartoon Page Editors at the Washington Post took revenge on Saturday, releasing a dark, streaky image by Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator Ann Telnaes. The grim image was titled “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the newspaper’s Trump-era slogan. Bezos, who appears to have denied the newspaper's editorial board the freedom to make a political endorsement, did not comment.

“The timing of the post The endorsement decision looks cowardly and undermines the very independence it purports to defend,” said Marcus Brauchli, who edited the paper from 2008 to 2012. “That’s a terrible own goal,” added Brauchli. “There are definitely good reasons why a newspaper might not support a presidential candidate. The post I didn’t offer anything and the timing was terrible and, no matter the reasoning, looks discouraged or cowardly.”

An editor at the newspaper said this Columbia Journalism Review The editorial work surrounding a recommendation went according to plan just a week ago. “We thought we were arguing about the language – not about whether there would be an endorsement,” he said post said the employee.

The decision that review noted, “it seems to us to be what Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University, calls 'anticipatory obedience.'” The phrase describes, in Snyder's words, “already ceding one's power to the aspiring authoritarian.”

It follows a similar decision earlier this week Los Angeles Timeswhich led to the resignation of several editorial board members. This decision seemed to come from L.A. Times Owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire.

The tradition of advocacy dates back to the days when political parties were officially given titles, says Bob Thompson, a media professor at Syracuse University.

“It seems strange to me that newspapers appear to provide objective reports and then step back and let the editors and the newspaper itself make a recommendation. Television doesn't do that. The question is: Why is it this election?”

The final days of this election have been marked by increasing bitterness and preemptive political recriminations.

This weekend, many American commentators are pointing directly at Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire and owner of the Washington Post since summer 2013.

He, it is argued, now suspects that Trump could win on November 5th and take revenge on the business ventures of Bezos and Amazon.

Although 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 Capability contract with Amazon Web Services, the company's most reliably profitable sector.

The Department of Defense's contract with AWS, the government said, is “designed to make cloud services and capabilities available at all classification levels and across all security domains” and is “key to enabling critical warfighting capabilities.”

Lewis made the newspaper's position clear in an opinion piece on the decision, which he said was “consistent with the newspaper's values.” post has always stood for it.”

He wrote: “Character and courage in the service of American ethics, 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 form their own opinions on this most consequential American issue to make a decision – who to choose 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 Street Journal.

Upon arrival at postHe took over from the first female editor-in-chief, Sally Buzbee, but she resigned a few months later, in June. She is believed to have objected to her new boss's attempts to scuttle a story about his involvement in the aftermath of the UK's newspaper hacking scandal.

When he was put in charge of the company, Lewis said, “We’re going to expand. We’ll get our swagger back.”