Three national newspapers have declined to endorse a presidential candidate: The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and now USA Today.
Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, explained this decision in this post, saying that an endorsement hurts the press more than it helps Americans. He referred to a recent Gallup poll showing that Americans’ trust in the media is at all-time lows. He doesn’t apologize for the many valid reasons for this, he just says that the press “must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias,” he wrote. “A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
He says that he intends to to win the fight for journalism and make “some changes.” What do you think that means? Some reports say that he intends to add some conservative voices to The Washington Post opinion pages.
Several reporters have resigned because of these papers’ failures to endorse a candidate, one of them a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
