Opinion: Endorsement-gate and the inherent danger of the billionaire newspaper owner

Since I’ve worked in publishing the past four decades, I’ve watched many newspapers and magazines come and go. It didn’t matter how stellar their journalism was or how wealthy their owners were.

Once-mighty publications owned by those deluded into thinking their riches afforded them media expertise eventually sunk into oblivion, leaving a hole in the media market and sending talented journalists scattered to other publications.

Newsweek magazine, which has had ties to a bizarre Korean Christian cult for the past decade, is today a pale imitation of the once-influential newsweekly owned by the Graham family (the former owners of the now-embattled Washington Post). Time magazine, now owned by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, has also lost its luster despite its billionaire savior’s benevolent efforts to keep it relevant in this age of media disruption.

Condé Nast, the magazine behemoth ruled by the late S.I. Newhouse for decades, is now, too, a much weaker collection of once-great magazines (Vanity Fair, Allure, Bon Appétit and Wired). Only the New Yorker and Vogue continue to have serious clout in this constellation of publications that once ruled the magazine world.

And now we have word that two more billionaire media hobbyists – Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong – have mucked up their once revered franchises.

These two multibillionaire owners decided to forgo one of the last significant powers that daily newspapers wield: endorsing political candidates. In this case, in the most consequential presidential race in many lifetimes, they have discarded decades of tradition and credibility by choosing not to take a stand for democracy.

Strangely, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are doing the exact opposite of their rival, The New York Times. The D.C. and L.A. papers will skip opining on the quadrennial presidential sweepstakes but will continue to endorse in local elections.

The New York Times shocked the New York political world earlier this year when it announced that it would no longer endorse in local elections (though that didn’t stop the paper from running an editorial urging Mayor Eric Adams to resign in the face of a federal indictment). But the paper, which has increasingly prioritized global coverage over local coverage, still weighs in on national races. In a recent editorial, the paper’s editorial board wrote that “Donald Trump is not fit to be president” and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

The outrage over Bezos’ decision not to endorse – and, to be clear, as the owner of the publication, he is well within his rights to do just that – has led to multiple staff defections and at least 250,000 canceled subscriptions, or about 10% of the publication’s total paid readership; reports have pegged the Los Angeles Times cancellations at around 2%

Owning media properties is not for the faint of heart. But the allure will always be there if you’re wealthy and interested enough to buy one to play with. As the 20th-century media critic A.J. Liebling once said: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

Just ask Elon Musk.