What is the history of newspaper endorsements and can they swing elections?
Al Jazeera
The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have been at the centre of a heated debate about political endorsement and its implications for press freedom.
Decisions by the billionaire owners of two leading newspapers to end their longstanding practice of endorsing the Democratic presidential candidate have prompted a backlash days before a neck-and-neck United States presidential election on November 5.
The owners of The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times blocked moves by their staff for the newspapers to back Democratic Kamala Harris against Republican runner Donald Trump, breaking with a decades-long tradition of picking a side.
The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder and owner of Amazon, said the decision was taken to safeguard independent reporting.
“Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be,” Bezos said.
Days earlier, another billionaire owner had taken a similar step. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech tycoon and owner of the LA Times, overruled the paper’s editorial decision to endorse Harris.
