US election 2024 live: Harris supports abortion rights, while Trump calls the USA a “garbage bin for the world”.

Anthony Zuercher
North America correspondent

image source, EPA

What do the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have in common? Both are major American newspapers that recently announced they would not be endorsing a candidate for president this year.

Both are also owned by billionaires – the medical manager and investor Patrick Soon-Shiong in Los Angeles and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in Washington.

Soon-Shiong has admitted to being directly involved in the editorial process that led to the decision not to support his newspaper. There are unconfirmed reports that Bezos also intervened at The Washington Post.

Both newspapers were reportedly preparing to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris.

While senior politicians in both newspapers have stated that the decision to break with long-standing tradition is not a judgment on the relative suitability and qualifications of the two candidates, many journalists and leftists do not see it that way – especially given that the Die Announcements came so close to election day.

Instead, they accuse newspapers of bowing to the political – and corporate – interests of their wealthy owners.

The Post's publisher, William Lewis, explained that the paper would allow readers to “make up their own minds” – but he did not say why it would continue to support candidates for other political offices.

Newspapers that once dominated the American media landscape have seen their editorial influence decline in recent years, as well as their circulation and readership.

So it's ironic that the decision not to support them is likely to attract more attention to the two articles, both negative and positive, than any other editorial they've published recently.