It's been an incredibly bad week for the mainstream media and we are so here for it.
First, it was the Los Angeles Times, whose staffers erupted in meltdowns over the decision made by its owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, not to endorse a presidential nominee in the 2024 election. It was an incredibly significant moment considering Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris is from California and had previously been endorsed by the Times during her Senate run.
LA Times editorial page editor Mariel Garza was especially indignant over the decision, resigning in disgust.
"It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist," she wrote in her farewell letter to the paper. "How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger?"
READ MORE-->> Requiem for a Rag: The LA Times Implodes Over the 'Non-Endorsement' of Harris
Fast forward a few days and, as we previously reported, the Washington Post has made a similar announcement, saying that not only will they not make a presidential endorsement this year but will no longer make them in future elections, either:
The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.
It didn't take long for those on the newsroom and the opinion sides of the paper to weigh in on the Twitter/X machine, with the consensus being that it was a dereliction of duty or something:
Welp, that's certainly a new type of October Surprise.
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) October 25, 2024
Today has been an absolute stab in the back.
— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) October 25, 2024
What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line, to call out threats to human rights and democracy.
We won a Pulitzer for public service for our coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection https://t.co/dmCIm8bmKc
— Brianna Sacks (@bri_sacks) October 25, 2024
A statement from Post Guild leadership on the Washington Post's decision to not endorse a presidential candidate pic.twitter.com/fYU7hkr79K
— Washington Post Guild (@PostGuild) October 25, 2024
The resignations have commenced as well:
Robert Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland — the disastrous Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs for most of the Biden-Harris Administration who has done fundraisers for Harris since she became the nominee and who might end up with a plum job in the admin if Harris wins. https://t.co/V6kCpv4AoU
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) October 25, 2024
There was also this:
Mini update: The furor at the WaPo is such that its chief tech officer is getting engineers to block Qs about its decision to not make an endorsement pm the Post's own AI site search,
— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) October 25, 2024
This according to internal WP correspondence I've reviewed
We're still awaiting word from their "conservative" columnist Jennifer Rubin, especially in light of how she praised Garza's resignation from the LA Times and demanded to know if other editors at the Times were following suit:
and where are the rest of them?
— Jen "We aren't going back " Rubin 🥥🌴 (@JRubinBlogger) October 23, 2024
As of this writing, no comment yet on the story from Rubin, who normally is like a poodle nipping at someone's heels when it comes to the big stories of the day. She's strangely silent on this one for some reason, and I think we all know why.
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