Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
On Sunday night the Washington Post published an opinion piece from one of its columnists entitled: ‘Why I'm not quitting the Post’. That would have looked odd until last week, when the newspaper announced it would not be endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time in decades. Jeff Bezos, the paper's owner, reportedly directed Washington Post staff not to publish a planned endorsement for Kamala Harris. A former editor, Marty Baron, described it as “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage”. Newspaper endorsements these days don’t sway many voters. But it doesn’t look good so close to an election, while executives from Bezos’s space firm reportedly met briefly with Trump in Texas within hours of the announcement. The Washington Post cartoonist published a blacked-out square, playing on the paper’s slogan that democracy dies in darkness.
