The Washington Post and LA Times are remaining nonpartisan

Question

Newspapers across the country have been ditching presidential endorsements, figuring they shouldn't alienate readers with something most of them wont care for.

Answer 1

This is true. Both the LA Times and The Washington Post decided not to endorse any candidate for the 2024 presidential election. News sources have been endorsing candidates for basically as long as newspapers have been around. These publications decision not to endorse a candidate is coming from the owners, and has resulted in several editors and senior officials resigning. Journalists worry that they will be the ones affected because people are cancelling subscriptions in anger, subscriptions that pay journalists salaries. The source used above to make this claim, The Associated Press is a not-for-profit news agency that produces stories from all over the world and distributes them to membership organizations all over the U.S. (membership organizations include major news sources like the NYT and major radio and broadcast networks.) The AP is a very reliable source, so claims and articles made by the AP are factual and trustworthy. The article listed above goes into detail about the history of newspaper endorsements and what is means for journalists employed by those organizations. Additionally, this claim is backed up by the news publications themselves. The LA Times and The Washington Post reported that they're seeing a drop in subscriptions after their non-endorsement and The New York Times's had an opinion piece about what the cancellation meant for the election.    

https://apnews.com/article/post-newspaper-endorsements-trump-harris-44efcb29d0b27c039a9b0b259ec255d7

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-28/non-endorsement-post-la-times-cancellations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/25/washington-post-endorsement-president/?itid=sr_1_f7b0f1d3-6b4d-4b5e-844a-7d1daf3c7f6f

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post-bezos-endorsement-president-cancellations-resignations

Comments

While it is true that both the LA Times and Washington Post did not publish an endorsement for the 2024 Presidential election, it does not necessarily reflect nonpartisanship as stated in the above original claim. Biases in the media and always present and perhaps even more so in the case of these publications respective corporate leadership. For example, this article for the NYT's(which, in full disclosure, did publish an endorsement for Harris ahead of the election) reported that Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the LA Times, stopped a planned endorsement for Harris because of her stance on the war in Gaza

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/los-angeles-times-endorsement-soon-shiong.html

Answer 2

This is true. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times did not endorse a presidential candidate during this election. Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, issued a statement defending the Post's stance on not endorsing a candidate and reaffirming that this statement is true. The Los Angeles Times owner defended its opinion column by explaining why it would not endorse a candidate affirming the claim made to be true. This claim "Newspapers across the country have been ditching presidential endorsements, figuring they shouldn't alienate readers with something most of them wont care for." It is not true it is reported that the Post has lost approximately 250,000 subscribers and counting. This proves that your claim of "alienating readers with something they won't care" isn't true. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/29/washington-post-cancellations-number/

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-10-25/latimes-no-presidential-endorsement-decison-resignations

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/25/washington-post-endorsement/

Comments

This is a great take. Your comment brings up a good point about the changing relationship between media outlets and the readers’ expectations especially in divided times.

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Good take, especially concerning Jeff Bezos business interest