At The Washington Post, whose editorial slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness,” someone has decided to turn out the lights.
But it’s not democracy that’s dying — not for another week, anyway – but the very heart of a storied newspaper.
It was The Post that once uncovered the darkest secrets of an outlaw president named Richard Nixon. But now, a week before Americans vote for a new president, the paper can’t summon the courage to endorse Kamala Harris who runs against Donald Trump.
Trump, who calls journalists “enemies of the people.”
Trump, who finds the good in Adolf Hitler just as he once found “good people” on both sides of a white supremacy rally and says if he loses it’ll be the fault of the Jews.
Trump, whose closest advisors — military and civilian — are finally telling America that Trump is a “fascist.”
Those voices aren’t afraid to tell the truth but The Washington Post, once one of our great truth-tellers, apparently is.
According to reliable reporting, The Post’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is afraid his economic interests, spread across business, technology, military and artificial intelligence fields, could be threatened if Trump is re-elected president.
Trump has vowed “retribution” against those who have opposed him.
Bezos, according to the new Forbes 400 listing, is the second richest man in America. He is reportedly worth $197 billion.
All of America can now measure what $197 billion cannot buy, something called courage.
(Just for the record, Forbes says the richest man in America is Elon Musk, at $274 billion. Musk has no fear of Trumpian retribution, as he currently resides in Trump’s back pocket.)
So what are we to make of the failure of The Post (and The Los Angeles Times) announcing they will not make any presidential endorsement in what is expected to be a nail-bitter of an election?
The problem isn’t that voters won’t know which direction to go without some brilliant editorial writer showing them the way. Anybody who hasn’t figured out the malignant Trump by now just hasn’t been paying attention and probably doesn’t care enough to vote anyway.
There was a time when newspapers had real prestige. They were regarded as judges, community elders, honest brokers who had no stake in the game except as elections affected the life of their city.
For generations, Baltimoreans would take the editorial page of The Sun, The Evening Sun and The News American, with their Election Day endorsements, into the voting booth to guide them through the labyrinth of candidates and proposed legislation.
But that goes back to a time when newspapers were powerful and circulation and advertising were imposing. The Post and The L.A. Times are two of the remaining handful of powerhouse papers left in America. At least, until now.
Those days are gone. The problem with those papers backing away from endorsements isn’t that voters will be left with insufficient information to cast a vote.
It’s that they’re left with more evidence that their hometown newspapers, once tough and brave enough to take on the most powerful people, are now admitting they haven’t got it in them anymore.
And that’s just one more nail they’re banging into their own coffins.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home.”
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