No editorial against Trump costs L.A. Times, Washington Post subscribers

The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post have seen significant subscription cancellations in the days since their billionaire owners decided not to endorse in the presidential race after the editorial boards at both newspapers proposed backing Vice President Kamala Harris.

National Public Radio reported that the Post saw more than 200,000 cancellations. Sources said The Times, which has less than 400,000 subscribers, had more than 7,000 subscribers cancel for “editorial reasons.” Total cancellations over the last few days were higher, but internal data did not give reasons in those cases.

Those losses amounted to about 8% of the roughly 2.5 million print and online readership of the Post and at least 1.8% of the audience for The Times. Any subscription drops are painful for financially shaky organizations whose futures rely heavily on building robust audiences online.

The Post suffered its particularly large setback, insiders said, because it built much of its reputation on being an unflinching Trump critic, adopting the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Many readers said they subscribed because the paper that exposed the Watergate scandal 50 years ago also held Trump accountable for his lies, his inflammatory and sometimes racist rhetoric and his attacks on institutions.

“This is a self-inflicted wound on the part of the Washington Post,” Martin Baron, former editor of the Post, said in an interview Monday. “Many of these readers signed up for the Post because they believed it would stand up to Donald Trump. And now they fear this is a sign of weakness … and an invitation to Trump to continue to bully the owner of the Washington Post.”

The angry reaction prompted an extraordinary response from the newspaper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The Post published a column by the billionaire, one of the world’s wealthiest men, in which he defended his decision not to endorse Harris, saying that the tradition of presidential endorsements had not helped the public but, instead, served to “create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence.”

He depicted the decision not to endorse in the Harris-Trump race as an attempt to begin to restore trust.

“I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it,” Bezos wrote. “That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.”

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wrote that the tradition of presidential endorsements had not helped the public but, instead, served to “create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence.”

(Brent N. Clarke / Invision / Associated Press)

Bezos rejected claims that he declined an endorsement to Harris in hopes of mollifying Trump, although he acknowledged that his web of business interests would always present appearances of potential conflicts of interest.

The Times’ owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said last week that he had decided not to endorse in an effort to ease sharp divisions surrounding the election. He said he trusted readers to pick the best candidate.

Readers accused the two venerable outlets of refusing to take a stand in the face of what they see as the dangers of another Donald Trump presidency.

“Our democracy is very much under threat, and we should be bolstering our institutions as an act of defiance against the threat of authoritarianism,“ said Miguel Santana, CEO of the California Community Foundation and a prominent civic leader in Southern California. “Choosing to sit this one out is shortchanging our community at the time when we need the institution most.”

David Warren, a long-time university administrator who is now retired, said The Times’ lack of endorsement made it appear Soon-Shiong had no respect for the years of critical reporting on Trump by his own newspaper.

Warren rejected the suggestion — raised by Soon-Shiong— that The Times should have provided readers only with a side-by-side matrix on Harris and Trump, comparing their records and issue stands.

“This excuse is like saying we should give the fantasy of creationism the same validity as the scientifically proven truth of evolution. We should not,” said Warren. “It’s so disingenuous and it seems cowardly. And I don’t think the paper should be cowardly.”

Many long-time readers said they were dropping The Times reluctantly but felt they had no other choice.

“I am absolutely heartbroken that I had to cancel because I truly appreciate all the brilliant hard work you all do everyday while the profession withers around you,” said Stephanie Stanley of Tarzana, who once worked as a journalist in New Orleans. “Unfortunately, I don’t see how else readers can express their shock and disgust.”

Some journalists at The Times joined readers in renewing their warnings about a potential unintended consequence of a reader cancellations — undermining The Times’ ability to fund its journalism, at the very time when the public says it wants public figures held to account.

Matt Hamilton, who won a Pulitzer Prize for covering scandals at USC — along with reporters Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle — also pleaded for “heartbroken” readers to consider the impact of dropping The Times.

“We have the largest newsroom west of the Mississippi,” said Hamilton. “These subscriptions underwrite our journalism, and they make it so that we can have more people covering City Hall, local courts, the school district, more people in Sacramento and D.C. Canceling your subscription just hurts the journalism effort.”

The Times had received as many as 1,000 emails and letters protesting the non-endorsement by midday Monday. About 90% of them criticized the paper and its owner.

At least some readers called not publishing the Harris endorsement the right move.

Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong said that he had decided not to endorse in an effort to ease sharp divisions surrounding the election.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

“A balanced approach is best,” wrote Keith Hagaman, a real estate investor who lives in Marina del Rey and Hawaii. “Kudos to Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, albeit it may be too late. If he had done this a few years ago, so many subscribers would not have left.”

Lloyd del Llamas had years of experience with journalists as a city administrator in several California cities. He credited Soon-Shiong with spending millions to bolster The Times and agreed that even disappointed readers needed to stand fast or risk having to rely on the less probing coverage provided by thinly staffed suburban newspapers around Southern California.

Terry Tang, the executive editor, directs the newsroom that produces The Times’ news pages. She also oversees the Opinion department, which includes the editorial board. The board, managed at the time by editorials editor Mariel Garza, tried to persuade Soon-Shiong to go ahead with an endorsement of Harris. A series detailing the dangers of a second Trump term had also been planned but not published.

“We understand that many readers are disappointed and angry that The Times did not make a presidential endorsement,” Tang said in a statement Monday. “ We want our readers to know that we deeply value the trust that they place in us and work hard every day to earn that trust. But canceling subscriptions will hurt our ability to provide the robust journalism our communities rely on.”

Garza resigned over the blocking of a pro-Harris editorial. She wrote in the Boston Globe on Monday that she suspects the owners of both papers did not want their business interests impacted by “a vengeful Trump administration.” Both have denied their businesses played a role in the decision.

The Atlantic published a critique by Robert Greene, a Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion writer, who resigned along with Garza and opinion writer Karin Klein.

“In this year’s race, a non-choice ignores Trump’s singular unfitness for office,” Greene wrote, “demonstrated time and again through his dishonesty, his false claims to have won the 2020 election, his criminal convictions, his impeachable offenses, his race-baiting, his threats of retaliation against his opponents, and many other features that make him a danger to the nation.”

The leaders of the union representing Times journalists also issued a new statement, saying Soon-Shiong should go beyond his social media posts and previous remarks by “writing an explanation to readers and the staff further detailing how he came to this decision and what it might mean for future endorsements.”

Soon-Shiong told The Times on Friday he had no regrets about the decision not to endorse. He did not respond to a request for further comment on Monday.

Staffers at the Washington Post also pleaded with readers not to cancel.

Post columnist Dana Milbank excoriated the owner for the decision, which he said “gave the appearance of cowering before a wannabe dictator to protect Bezos’s business interests.” But he joined colleagues in pleading with readers not to abandon the newspaper because of the owner’s action.

“Boycotting The Post will hurt my colleagues and me,” he wrote. “We lost $77 million last year, which required a[nother] round of staff cuts through buyouts. The more cancellations there are, the more jobs will be lost, and the less good journalism there will be. … For all its flaws, The Post is still one of the strongest voices for preserving our democratic freedoms.”

Jennifer Mercieca, a political historian and communications professor at Texas A&M and author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” said every action in the final days before voting closes on Nov. 5 is provoking new levels of anxiety among an already tense electorate.

And for those who fear Trump, any sign he may have sway over powerful institutions only redoubles concern, Mercieca said.

“It wouldn’t have been a story had you all just endorsed,” she said. “Nobody would have been concerned. But the fact that you chose not to is telling — and people read into that with fear.”

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.