The most important story in months about media and democracy wasn’t an article—it was the absence of 1. The information broke yesterday afternoon: For the primary time in virtually 50 years, The Washington Publish would not be endorsing a presidential candidate. The truth is, it will be ending the apply altogether. An endorsement—of Kamala Harris—had been drafted by “editorial web page staffers,” a Publish article reported, however then got here the choice to not publish it. That alternative was made not by the paper’s editorial board or newsroom management, the Publish (and others) reported, citing nameless sources, however by its proprietor, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Bezos, because it occurs, has billions of {dollars} in contracts earlier than the federal authorities. It didn’t take lengthy for individuals to begin suggesting that the choice to not endorse might need had little to do with journalistic precept and far to do with the connection between Bezos and the famously vindictive one who, if elected president of america, might quickly have main affect over his companies. “That is cowardice, a second of darkness that may depart democracy as a casualty,” Martin Baron, a former Publish govt editor, informed NPR. “Donald Trump will have fun this as an invite to additional intimidate The Publish’s proprietor, Jeff Bezos (and different media homeowners). Historical past will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an establishment famed for braveness.” (Bezos has not commented on the endorsement determination. The Publish’s communications chief informed the paper’s reporters, “This was a Washington Publish determination to not endorse.”)
Common individuals have few methods of combating forces larger than them, forces akin to the specter of authoritarianism, the boiling-frog encroachment on free expression, and the near-unchecked energy of the ultrarich. However shopper alternative is one factor they do have. And within the hours instantly after the non-endorsement was made public, Publish readers pulled the lever they knew to tug, the lever they’ve been pulling roughly so long as newspapers have existed: They canceled their subscriptions. As Max Tani reported in Semafor, counting on accounts from nameless sources, “within the 24 hours ending Friday afternoon, about 2,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions.” (In the identical piece, Tani quoted a supply saying that the variety of canceled subscriptions was “not statistically vital.”) NPR, citing inside Publish correspondence, reported that “greater than 1,600 digital subscriptions had been cancelled lower than 4 hours after the information broke.”
It was an affordable impulse. But when Bezos is, certainly, why the Publish is not endorsing candidates, and if individuals are fearful about his outsize affect on our society, they shouldn’t be canceling their newspaper subscriptions. They need to be canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions.
Amazon is the most important retailer on this planet, the second-largest non-public employer in america, and the rationale Bezos was wealthy sufficient to purchase the Publish within the first place. And Amazon, as I’ve beforehand reported, is powered by Prime, which in and of itself generates large income for the corporate, along with facilitating ever extra buying. Final yr, the corporate’s income from its membership choices alone got here to $40.2 billion. That is roughly twice as a lot because the 2022 income of each publicly traded newspaper firm within the nation mixed, and infinitely greater than that of the Publish, which in Could reported that it had misplaced $77 million prior to now yr, largely on account of declining paid readership. The US has roughly 127 million households. Current estimates present that U.S. shoppers maintain 180 million Prime subscriptions and fewer than 21 million newspaper subscriptions.
Amazon Prime subscriptions pay for Amazon to develop—to gobble up market share, put small shops out of enterprise, and make Bezos extra highly effective. Newspaper subscriptions, by the identical token, pay for newspapers to develop. They pay for reporting and modifying and fact-checking and the expert labor of a vanishing class of individuals—individuals devoted to the cautious work of gathering the information, verifying the accuracy of data, and endeavoring to make sure a well-informed citizenry. The individuals who try this work should not those chargeable for killing the Publish’s endorsement. However they’re those who’re prone to be laid off, furloughed, purchased out, or underpaid if firm income dwindles on account of subscription cancellations.
Subscriptions allow fearlessness and independence; they allowed the Publish to publish the Pentagon Papers and unravel the Watergate scandal, which led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. (This was additionally, after all, when promoting income nonetheless sustained the information enterprise.) Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who anchored the Watergate protection, launched an announcement yesterday calling the choice to not endorse “shocking and disappointing,” particularly given the paper’s “personal overwhelming reportorial proof on the risk Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
Journalism is pricey. And the information trade is in disaster partly as a result of not sufficient individuals are prepared to pay for it. Woodward and Bernstein reported on Watergate for 2 years earlier than Nixon resigned; whereas they did, subscribers helped pay their salaries, in addition to the salaries of the editors and manufacturing employees who labored to deliver their tales to the general public. In 2022, Publish reporters received the Pulitzer Prize for public service, one of many trade’s highest honors, for tales concerning the chaos that befell their metropolis on January 6, 2021, after a bunch of individuals stormed the Capitol and tried to overthrow a legitimately elected president. Subscribers helped pay for that work too. However their numbers preserve dwindling. This is the reason, in recent times, some information organizations have come to depend on the largesse of particular person billionaires. The individuals whom American journalism establishments had been constructed to serve—common readers—are not paying the test.
Readers who’ve written to cancel their Publish subscriptions have cited the endorsement determination, however they’ve additionally cited the paper’s normal decline: “There simply isn’t a lot to learn in The Publish anymore, and it’s not a neighborhood paper in any significant sense,” one wrote. But when these readers desire a sturdy native newspaper, an establishment to maintain holding the highly effective to account, Publish subscriptions aren’t the issue. They’re the answer. One of the best factor these readers can do is cancel their $139 annual Prime subscriptions, if they’ve them, and make investments that cash within the journalism they are saying they need and want.