On Wednesday Oct 23, the LA Times was blindsided by the resignation of their editorial chief Mariel Garza, who quit after the newspaper’s owner Dr. Patrick SoonShiong blocked the editorial board’s attempt to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Garza’s resignation was followed by other members of her editorial board including Pulitzer prize winner Robert Greene and fellow colleague Karin Klein who quit the following day.
Similarly, the Washington Post was rocked with almost 200,000 cancelled subscriptions after the editorial board—under the pressure of its owner Jeff Bezos—opted to not endorse any candidate this election cycle. Along with massive losses in subscribers, long-time columnist Robert Kagan also tendered his resignation, while other members of the editorial board publicly blasted the newspaper’s decision to remain quiet. In response, Wil liam Lewis—the Post’s chief executive—doubled down on the decision to not endorse any candidate by claiming that he wants to move the newspaper back to their days of neutrality in the 1970s.
The XCIX Scroll editorial board disagrees with the decisions of these two papers.
As an editorial board ourselves, the Scroll first wants to first acknowledge how fraught our current election is—and will become as the ballots float toward the polls on November 5. Our society is more polarized than ever, where calls for violence and imprisonment against political opponents are cheered on by crowds of overzealous supporters that treat politics like a Ultimate Fighting Championship face-off. These tensions are reflected—and amplified—in the news that we consume. More and more are now seeing media outlets hunker down behind their preferred candidate, voluntarily becoming mouthpieces for campaign promises and fudging their facts for the sake of fanfare. We see pundits happily spew misinformation in front of millions of Americans not only due to their preference of candidate, but also because the easiest way to garner profit and views. In many ways, politics have been the world’s most profitable competitive sport.
It makes sense, then, to see traditional newspapers (who typically serve as a counterbalance to the reactionary sound bites of social media) feel resistance when trying to make presidential endorsements. On one hand, newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today are meant to be platforms where opinions and convictions can be shared to a larger audience. However, the act of trying to curb the professional, long standing and disciplined voice of journalism in politics is something the our editorial board is uncomfortable with.
Our editorial board does not, however, does not believe that every newspaper has to make a presidential endorsement. The Scroll won’t be making one this election, but we still believe that opinion columns, including board editorials, should be allowed to endorse. Unlike social media, opinion journalism is often deliberative, researched and disciplined. Editors make multiple rounds through a paper, challenging the author on their conviction to the beliefs, but also helping clarify their stance through the editing process. Unlike an impulsive tweet, an Op-ed is a greater commitment to one’s opinion, and often is better reasoned and supported. If an editorial board makes an endorsement, they mean it. In addition, staying neutral not because of a lack of consensus in the boardroom but due to owner intervention is not a trend that should be promoted. Just like Professor Jay Rosen pointed out in the Deerfield Forum, newspapers are increasingly eroding the fire wall between their reporting and their owner’s viewpoints. This is a dangerous trend that could compromise the journalistic integrity of some of the most well-read papers in the country. More than that, media owners such as Jeff Bezos and Rupurt Murdoch will feel empowered to further involve themselves in the reporting of the newspapers they own, hinting at a future of journalism more concerned about making investors happy rather than quality writing.
The point is, endorsements from newspapers matter. In fact, they’re more important than ever as newspapers are one of the few principled and disciplined voices in the political hailstorm of punditry and social media that we live in today. Publishing a well-reasoned, edited and thoughtful Op-ed on what candidates to vote for helps people figure out their own values. It doesn’t pivot the outcome of an election.
Ultimately, a newspaper is just the sum of the voices that exist within it. Each voice has the right to express their opinion, and by extension each paper does too.