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When the news business is the news, things can get tricky – one of the reasons I admire NPR’s David Folkenflik, who has to sometimes walk an uncomfortable line when he’s reporting on, even critiquing, his fellow journalists (including, on occasion, NPR itself). As someone who’s written and spoken publicly about news, I know it’s fraught territory, which Folkenflik navigates deftly.
That certainly goes for this week’s story about the Washington Post, which this week announced it would abstain from endorsements for the first time since 1988. Sources within the paper, including longtime columnist Robert Kagan, have said the editorial board was set to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, but were overruled.
The blowback has been swift. Cancellations – literal unsubscribing, not just social-media performance – and castigation have mounted quickly. For many, the Post’s masthead slogan – “Democracy dies in darkness” – went from iconic to ironic in a heartbeat. “Democracy dies in broad daylight,” went one opinion headline in the Boston Globe.
The decision apparently came from CEO and publisher Will Lewis, brought on at the beginning of this year by owner Jeff Bezos, at least in part to help engage with the conservative establishment; Lewis formerly ran the Wall Street Journal and served as an advisor to conservative British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
To be fair, I've heard from some folks who felt squashing the endorsement was a wise move, especially since not all readers understand that editorial boards are partitioned from editors and reporters in the newsroom. At a time when public trust in mainstream media is at historic lows, weighing in on a divisive presidential election could exacerbate the situation, the argument goes.
But many others were less charitable. Some blamed behind-the-scenes pressure on, even threats against, Bezos from former president Donald Trump. Some blamed a craven desire to maintain readership at the expense of editorial integrity. Others put the decision in a broader, more existential frame, which includes a similar decision by the Los Angeles Times’ owner (leading to several high-profile resignations).
While I understand the concern here, things look a little different from the world of public media, which does not endorse candidates. NPR affiliate stations don’t have editorial boards, separate entities firewalled from the newsrooms, that can make independent pronouncements.
That isn’t to say local news can’t benefit greatly from the power of the editorial board. Journalists report stories – including all the context and analysis warranted – but they leave it up to the reader to make broader conclusions about what should be done: who should be elected, what administrators should be replaced, which policies should be shelved or renewed. Editorial boards can reflect on that reporting and make those more direct recommendations.
For example: in 2019, StarNews issued a powerful editorial calling for fiscal and moral accountability from elected officials in the wake of multiple cases of sexual child abuse and negligent administration in the school system. The editorial board said what reporters couldn’t and they did so loudly, clearly, and in a way that kept reporters – who would have to cover an election the following year – out of the fray.
It isn’t a perfect system. Just two months earlier, StarNews issued an editorial headlined “shut down Wilmington’s public-housing killing fields,” backing Ralph Evangelous, then chief of the Wilmington Police Department, in his call to raze Creekwood and other public housing neighborhoods. The public’s frustration with violence was real, and certainly rose to the level where the editorial board could and should have addressed it. But the unsubtle comparison to the Khmer Rouge’s violence in Cambodia, to say nothing of the call to destroy Creekwood – a neighborhood many, including future police Chief Donny Williams, called home – struck many as out of touch, even racist. If you were working as a reporter at StarNews at the time, you weren’t safe from the blowback from that editorial. In fact, though I'd never worked for StarNews (I was the editor for Port City Daily at the time), I still faced pushback from Black residents who felt the media was hopelessly disconnected from and disinterested in their community.
Still, while fallible, editorials remain an important part of the Fourth Estate’s role, enabling news outlets to deliver a Walter Cronkite moment: a deeply reasoned, deeply reported opinion, carrying moral weight and factual backing. And, most of all, driving the point home for people who may not have been following drip-drip-drip reporting, or gleaning meaningful details from months of coverage. A good editorial can cut through the noise of life, work, school, and kids – and drive home the truth of a situation.
So, when Gannett and other major media conglomerates started killing the editorial, I was saddened. In 2022, Gannett axed editorials at hundreds of daily papers, saying “Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think,” and noting that editorial boards didn’t have the expertise to weigh in on most issues.
That may have been part of the decision, but as NiemanReports noted this year, another part of Gannett’s reasoning was that editorials were “among its least-read articles.” And Gannett may have been right – both about reads and a lack of expertise. But the former doesn’t justify ignoring important issues, and the latter is, I suspect, because of the systematic gutting of local papers' resources. The editorial only truly works when it’s based on the hard work of reporters; with less, and more shallow reporting, editorial boards don’t have a leg to stand on.
All that said, I don’t wish NPR – or WHQR – had an editorial board. And, honestly, I’m glad we don’t do endorsements.
You’ll certainly never read an endorsement from me. That’s because it’s not my job. But it’s also because I don’t think you need it. If you’re an NPR listener, a WHQR member, and you’re reading this newsletter, I think you’re probably following along closely. You’re in the front row, taking notes. I don’t think you need the recap.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think editorials – and especially endorsements – are sometimes for the cheap seats. If you’ve been reading the Post, the fact that the paper was set to endorse Vice President Harris, before Lewis (and possibly Bezos) stepped in, would not surprise you.
But that’s only my opinion and, as you know, I'm always interested in yours.
