Bok Bok Bezos

The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times aren't endorsing in this election

If the owners of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are afraid of Candidate Trump, then they’re really going to buckle to the pressure of Dictator Trump.

Both newspapers, the Post and the Times, are cowardly refusing to endorse a presidential candidate in this election despite the fact both newspapers’ editorial boards wrote endorsements for Harris. The orders to shitcan those editorials and endorsements came from the top, the owners, Jeff Bezos of the Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong of The Times.

Cowards.

These decisions aren’t in the interest of journalism. If they’re the right calls, then why weren’t they made for the last election? Both newspapers made endorsements in 2020. What’s changed? This time, it’s harder to pick who’s going to win and one of the candidates is a woman…a Black woman. It’s safer to hedge your best and not make an endorsement. In 2020, we were pretty sure Joe Biden would defeat Trump. This time, even Nate Silver can’t call it, but his gut says Trump.

Neither publication can endorse Donald Trump because he’s on his way to destroying the nation. It’s safer not to get in the way. They can’t endorse Kamala Harris because if Trump wins, he’ll seek revenge as his entire campaign is about revenge and payback for personal grudges.

During his first term (sic), Trump attacked The Washington Post’s excellent coverage of his administration by calling it The Amazon Washington Post. He tried to kill deals between the United States Post Office and Amazon over the Post’s coverage.

Men, even Black men, are afraid of voting for Kamala Harris as they believe world leaders won’t respect her, ignoring that autocrats own Trump and other world leaders literally laugh at him. And now we see that so-called responsible and adult billionaires are afraid to endorse a Black woman.

When Jeff Bezos bought the Post for $250 million in 2013, the paper added over 200 people to its newsroom, eventually employing over 900 journalists. It won major awards for its coverage of, among other subjects, the Trump administration. The paper had more than 1.5 million digital subscribers and was profitable.

Since then, Bezos hired an unethical hack from Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids who tried to shut down stories about his corruption and lack of ethics. The Post also conducted layoffs and buyouts. The Post also hired conservative Michael Ramirez to draw right-wing propaganda cartoons and other days, lazy cartoons that safely say both sides suck or objects with the word “debt” on them, and place them in the spot that once belonged to Herblock and then Tom Toles. They’re also putting opinionless cartoons on the opinion page that are better suited for The New Yorker.

My last cartoon in the Post was on June 12 of this year, and then on June 23, I drew a cartoon about the new corrupt publisher, comparing him to Katherine Graham, and it’s probably just a coincidence because maybe I draw shitty cartoons, but I haven’t had a cartoon in the Post since.

Remember when billionaires like Bezos and Soon-Shiong were going to save us? They were going to save democracy. They were going to call out fascism even to the detriment of profits because they loved and respected journalism so much. Now they’re folding in the face of fear. If these owners and publishers are afraid of Candidate Donald Trump, they will cower and do the bidding of Dictator Donald Trump.

They’re not much better than Elon Musk who turned Twitter, a platform that once had policies against disinformation, and turned it into X, a platform engineered to spread lies, propaganda, conspiracy theories, sexism, antisemitism, and racism.

These billionaires are not going to save us. They’re not Bruce Wayne. They’re not putting on capes and cowls at night to fight bad guys.

If Bezos owned the Gotham Globe and the mayoral race was between the Penguin and Batgirl, he’d be too afraid of pissing off the criminal underworld and would refuse to endorse a candidate. Besides, birds gotta stick together. The chicken will protect the Penguin.

The calls not to endorse were not editorial decisions, they were business decisions. The endorsements were written with both for Harris. The owners swooped in and killed them.

I hope Bezos and Soon-Shiong can both sleep at night while the Penguin and the Joker burn Gotham to the ground. Wait a minute, I hope they can’t sleep at all.

I canceled my subscription to The Washington Post yesterday in protest. That breaks my heart because I’ve always loved the Post. I’ve been a loyal subscriber for years. I’ve been an LA Times subscriber off and on in the past when I got good deals, but I wasn’t one when they decided not to endorse.

A few people have tweeted at me about what news outlets I should subscribe to, but I don’t think I need that advice since I’m in the business and I have firm opinions of who’s doing good coverage and also offering decent deals for subscriptions. I’m still a subscriber to The New York Times and I’ve been reading The Guardian more lately. Last year, I subscribed to the NY Times, The Post, The Daily Beast, and the Times of London. In the past, I subscribed to Rolling Stone, but their reporting includes opinions, and I prefer to have straight-up news. I don’t subscribe to any news outlet for the opinions. It’s also why I don’t watch MSNBC that much.

Music note: I listened to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

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