After many months of scrimmage, speeches, and resolution, the 2024 presidential election has recently concluded with Donald Trump designated the winner and president-elect. Thinking back on the race, numerous companies and organizations, specifically newspapers, made it clear who they were endorsing—companies like The New York Times endorsed Kamala Harris. In contrast, others, such as the New York Post, endorsed Donald Trump.
Despite this, three-fourths of newspapers did not endorse any candidate. This proposes the question of whether or not newspapers should endorse presidential candidates and, if so, why.
Newspapers Staying Silent
One of the newspapers that decided not to endorse a presidential candidate, a newspaper that has endorsed candidates for many years prior, is The Washington Post. This decision shocked many of the paper's subscribers, some of them even canceling their subscriptions. However, this was not the first newspaper to withdraw from endorsing a candidate in this presidential race.
Right before The Washington Post announced its decision, the LA Times editorial board blocked an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. When the LA Times did this, many of its employees decided to resign. One of the said employees, editor Mariel Garza, told the Columbia Journalism Review that she resigned because she was not willing to stand with the silence that the LA Times chose to take in what she called “dangerous times." “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Garza said. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up; this is how I’m standing up.”
Image Credit: Dustin Demmerle from Pexels
Should Newspapers Endorse Candidates?
Even though newspapers cannot decide who someone votes for, endorsing candidates can be beneficial in influencing voters. When companies do not endorse candidates, it may be because they do not want to lose subscribers, and this standpoint could be favorable for readers who hold a neutral stance.
However, in the end, this neutral standpoint proved to do more harm than good. On the other hand, newspapers that did endorse candidates helped their audience understand their source of news better, allowing them to get information from a paper that caters to their point of view, meaning newspapers should be endorsing candidates to do their part in the presidential race and to educate teens and others who cannot vote about the election.
