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LA Times and Washington Post Lack of support is a danger to democracy

LA Times and Washington Post Lack of support is a danger to democracy

Sakege08 mins

I have never felt more worried about the future of our country.

Of course, it’s the fact that the presidential election is very close, split evenly between a very reasonable Democratic candidate and a terrifying Republican who is a convicted felon, a pathological liar, and more cognitively questionable by the day.

I don’t trust polls anyway, and neither should you. They were wildly wrong in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was assured of victory, a little wrong in 2020, when Trump refused to accept the result, and wildly wrong in the 2022 midterm elections. Remember the “Red Wave” that did not occurred? That.

But what is giving me stabbing stomach pains is the blow to our free press, which is the one thing we cannot do without as a country. Freedom of expression. Critical voices. Independent investigation into our government and elected officials.

A free and vibrant press is the sole and indispensable pillar of a democracy. And those institutions are at risk.

The decision by billionaire Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong to cancel endorsement of Kamala Harrismatched by the decision of the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. end the practice of endorsing any candidate, after the newspaper’s editorial board had prepared to back it as well, it is a devastating blow to the free press.

Two of the country’s largest newspapers withdrew their opinions from the table days before the election, even though their editorial boards wanted to be heard. In doing so, they send a terrible signal to other corporate leaders and other publishers. If they avoided provoking Trump, others will too.

It’s legitimately scary. As historian Timothy Snyder has written, his decision on these endorsements is a kind of “anticipatory obedience,” a giving in to Trump’s threats to retaliate against his perceived enemies before anything happens and without Trump even being elected. This is a dangerous signal for democracy.

“Do not obey beforehand,” Snyder writes in his seminal pamphlet, “On Tyranny,” which is being widely cited on social media. “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. “In times like these, people think about what a more repressive government would want and then offer themselves without being asked.”

Hundreds of journalists in these newsrooms who have rejected their owners, thousands of readers who have canceled their subscriptions in the last three days, are furious that these billionaires are “bending the knee” to Trump for fear of what he might do.

Journalists at these newspapers have spent years proving their worth, reporting on both Trump and Joe Biden in a sea of ​​social media noise. They examine facts, track down sources, try to identify misinformation, all under enormous pressure. Their work is essential at a time when voters don’t know what information to trust.

You trust Washington Post reporting. And the LA Times. And a handful of others. Without them, our democracy is adrift.

I worked at The Washington Post for eight years. And I’ve covered the ups and downs at the Los Angeles Times under multiple owners for 20 years. I admit I was relieved when Bezos bought the Post from the Graham family in 2013. And I was thrilled to see Soon-Shiong, a local Los Angeles resident, rescue (so I thought) the LA Times from the Tribune’s confusing mismanagement.

But these latest decisions belie the civic duty of multi-billion dollar ownership of our news institutions. Bezos has billions of dollars in contracts with the US government and Soon-Shiong’s main source of wealth is his pharmaceutical research, which depends on federal approval.

Meanwhile, both newspapers are losing huge amounts of money (the Post lost $100 million last year; the Times, at least $50 million). Both billionaires may regret buying them.

The argument in favor of multimillion-dollar ownership of newspapers was that the owners were so wealthy that they were immune from political threats or intimidation. The wealthy individual was making an investment in the community and gaining a tool of influence in the halls of state and national government, business, and foreign policy.

It gave them a place at the table of power in a way their money couldn’t. But that property also confers obligation. That’s a realization that seems to escape another billionaire who dabbles dangerously in the media, X-owner and Trump reinforcement Elon Musk.

As I have maintained for years, the means are different. It’s not like a sports team or a packaged product or a car manufacturer. It brings with it a special responsibility to advocate for honest, fact-based research and to have the courage to disseminate the results of that research.

It also means overseeing an unruly editorial staff of polite, opinionated reporters and editors who won’t be cowed, intimidated or harassed.

Independently owned media is essential in our age of misinformation. TheWrap remains fiercely independent, as we like to say. And all we do is news. Don’t hesitate to support us with a subscription, it’s worth the investment.

But as for other posts, let’s hope our multi-million dollar problem doesn’t spread any further.


Kamala Trump Patrick Image v4

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