What it means when national newspapers won’t endorse a presidential candidate | WITH Boulder Today

It seems that voters who have democracy in their shopping cart also like fair and balanced endorsements of political candidates.

How else to explain that in the days since Washington Post (and Amazon) owner Jeff Bezos endorsed the paper’s support of Kamala Harris, more than a quarter of a million readers have canceled their digital subscriptions?

“If there’s anything optimistic about this, it’s that this has made the news — that people are more aware of the inner workings of journalism under corporate leadership and the struggles that journalists face in that environment,” he said. Vicky Samaassociate professor of journalism in College of Media, Communication and Information at CU Boulder.

Sama, a First Amendment expert who covered Latin American war, elections and cartels as a producer at CNN before moving into teaching, studies press freedom, media education and ethics, and related topics. She said she was surprised, if not shocked, by the eagerness with which the wealthy businessmen who own the Post and the Los Angeles Times crushed their newspaper endorsements in the days leading up to Election Day.

“Typically, the press is concerned about how the government might impede their freedoms to report and gain access,” Sama said. “But in this case, we’re dealing with the head of the corporation. It’s quite worrying to have this resistance from within your own company.”

The effect an endorsement has on a candidate’s performance in the polls isn’t always clear, but those editorials play an important role in helping readers understand the context around the important issues of the day.

That’s especially true this election cycle, Sama said, as journalists have struggled to accurately label and describe Donald Trump, acting as gatekeepers against a wave of digitally generated misinformation.

“Somebody has to sift through all the weeds and tell us what’s really going on, and for most newspapers, that’s the opinion pages,” she said. “Newspaper editorials play a critical role in our democracy, providing explanations, giving context, telling you that you should worry about this. You should be concerned about that.”

Most news consumers know that there is a firewall that separates the business and reporting side of the house. And opinion pages live independently of the newsgathering operation, but the same journalistic principles and ethics apply. When ultra-wealthy owners like Bezos or the Los Angeles Times’ Patrick Soon-Shiong kill such pieces, it calls into question how the publication can remain an independent watchdog.

“Bezos does not follow the principles of journalism,” Sama said. “He saved the Post when he bought it in 2013, but he doesn’t know the practice of journalism. He’s a businessman.”

The great irony in all of this, Sama said, is that both papers’ support for Harris was all but assured, based on already published opinion coverage warning of the danger Trump poses to democracy.

“The fact that they killed their endorsements for Kamala Harris made it a bigger story than if they had gone ahead and endorsed it,” she said. “This almost turned a non-story into an issue that was covered by media critics for a week and literally across the country.”

A savvy journalist would probably have seen this coming. That’s one reason Sama would love the idea of ​​Bezos visiting one of her courses, which cover media law, ethics and key principles of reporting.

“I would like to show him something about the ethics and principles of journalism and make him understand, from the journalist’s side, what the effects are when a rich business owner gets involved in newsroom decisions,” she said.

“But of course, money talks — and if he’s going to lose billions of dollars by saying the wrong thing about Trump, I don’t think any principle is going to make him understand what’s at stake beyond his bottom line.”