Democracy Dies in Darkness

... or cowardice

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is on the masthead of the Washington Post. The paper that, with the Times, brought you The Pentagon Papers. If you don’t know the story, the movie The Post, starring Meryl Streep as Kate Graham (publisher), and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee (executive editor), is well worth watching. You will see the true story of conflict, consideration, and finally dedication to honor.

The Post won a Pulitzer in 1973 for its coverage of the Watergate scandal. One of many. Full list here. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who led that effort, with the full support of both Bradlee and Graham, issued the following statement yesterday, after WaPo’s owner, Jeff Bezos, refused to allow the Editorial Board of the Post to endorse in the current election:

"We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post's own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process." Source.

A few hours after the non-endorsement became known, editor-at-large Robert Kagan resigned. Thousands of subscribers canceled their subscriptions. I was one of them.

The question is WHY? When Bezos bought the Post, he claimed to be committed to staying out of anything editorial. He claimed he didn’t know anything about newspapers, but he knew how to drive sales. As part of that, everyone with an Amazon Prime subscription has, ever since, had access to reduced subscription fees. And he poured a lot of money into the Post’s investigative journalism. And kept out of editorial decisions, until yesterday.

There are rumors. Like the meeting the day before the non-endorsement between Blue Origin executives and the Convicted Felon. Source. Perhaps he thinks that if the Convicted Felon won’t dismantle the Post when he goes after all media he doesn’t like. How cute. How wrong. The Orange Menace will do what he says he will, as this article from the Times (which endorsed Vice President Harris back on 30 September) says.

While the Post joins the LA Times in non-endorsement, other major papers, in addition to the Times, like the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe, and the Houston Chronicle (just to name a few) stood up for democracy.

As both a long-time subscriber of the Post, as well as a journalist, this is heartbreaking. Investigative journalism is a critical part of our democracy. If we lose it, along with editorial freedom, it is a disaster.

No doubt that newspapers are having a hard time of things: being bought up by the 1%, as well as corporate entities, as well as facing declining revenue sources with a severe drop in readership and advertising.

Years ago, EVERYONE read a newspaper every day. EVERYONE had the local paper (and possibly others) home delivered every day. If you rode the NY subway, we all knew the right way to fold out papers so we could read them while strap-hanging.

If you read through the list of Pulitzers awarded to newspapers, you’ll see how much information we all learned, and how things ended up solved, prosecuted, cured, thanks to the efforts of brave and daring reporters.

The publishers always left editorial control to the professionals. This enabled the work to continue unabated. As a lifelong newspaper reader, there were editorials with which I disagreed, but people are entitled to their own opinions (albeit not their own facts). And the facts in the investigations always carried. Here are just ten. There are thousands, both national and local.

So what can we do? Support journalism by subscribing to a newspaper (yeah, not the LA Times nor the Washington Post). Especially local newspapers. And get out there and WORK so that the Convicted Felon and his minions can’t win in 10 days and kill off ALL journalism.

Thanks for subscribing to my Substack. I do the journalism I can, and am grateful that there is a platform for long form journalism.