Monday, October 28, 2024

Part I

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This Just Blew Up the Media World: The Washington Post and LA Times Decline to Endorse a Presidential Candidate for the 2024 Election

For the better course of the last century or so, American newspapers have often offered what amounts to endorsements in major political races, and that of course would include the biggest race of them all, which is the American presidency. But the big news in the last few days has been that two major newspapers, and I mean two major newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, have both announced that they are going to decline to endorse either candidate in the 2024 presidential election. And both have indicated that it is their intention that the papers no longer do such endorsements. Although the question is still open as to whether or not both papers will offer some kind of endorsement when it comes to statewide elections or other local matters.

But the fact is this is making big news. Not only big news, but big waves. Giant controversy. And of course, the expectation was that both of these liberal papers would endorse the Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris. It’s actually apparent that Kamala Harris expected both of these editorial boards to offer their endorsement. And one of the first things I want to say is I’m not sure they would’ve mattered much anyway, but it tells you a lot that these endorsements that didn’t happen, matter a lot to the dominant media class itself and also to the Democratic nominee for president. That’s the class that’s supposed to stick together, and in this case, not so much.

But this raises some massive issues that we get to think about simply because of this controversy. First of all, what about the editorial board endorsement? Well, one of the things you need to remember is that the newspaper business as we know it today, insofar as we can still talk about a newspaper business that we still know today, the historic newspaper business really began with competitive alternative newspapers even in most single communities, especially of any size, especially the cities.

By the time you get to the modern printing press and modern industrial revolution developments, you also have these big cities, you have rival parties, particularly in places such as Britain and in the United States. But you also had similar developments in nations such as Germany and France. You had opposing political parties and basically you had alternative media sources, especially newspapers connected to all of those parties. Sometimes more than one paper for a single party. And so many of these papers actually emerged as well, just to say, if you look at the British example, these were papers that belonged to the Conservative Party, or at least were very tied to the liberal party, later the Socialist Labor Party. And so no one is surprised when those newspapers have an editorial bias toward one party or another. But in the consolidation of the media, particularly the print media that took place in the United States over the course, especially of the last say, 60 or 70 years, that really has changed.

Whereas even in a city like Louisville for a while, we had two newspapers, the Courier Journal in the morning, the Louisville Times in the evening. The fact is that they really weren’t all that different since they were owned by one massively wealthy media family. They had separate teams to an extent. But when you have a common owner, guess what? You’re in a common business. That really gets to another big issue we need to think about. Let me just dispense with this issue right now. There are many people who will say, “You know this raises huge issues about the freedom of the press.” Well, wait just a minute. Why would this issue raise such questions? Well, it’s because some people are saying, “Look, you have editors who quit in protest. You have writers who say, this was a horrible idea. You even have members of an editorial board who are insinuating that they didn’t get their way.” Why didn’t they get their way? Don’t we honor the freedom of the press?

Well, this is where Americans and many conservatives just don’t even get to think about this. This is where Americans need to slow down a moment and recognize that the freedom of the press is indeed a constitutionally protected right. And what does that mean, the freedom of reporters? Well, to a certain extent, the freedom of editors? Well, to a certain extent, it actually means the freedom of the one who owns the press. That’s the freedom of the press, which is to say that if you own a newspaper, you get to decide what’s in that newspaper. In most situations, those newspapers are commercial enterprises, and in most cases, they have been falling and failing spectacularly in the digital age. Now, that’s the reason why it’s not the older established Graham family who owned the Washington Post. Instead, it’s Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon. And when it comes to the Los Angeles Times, it is not the Chandler family and others who were so important in thinking about the rise of Los Angeles as a major city, that newspaper as a major institution. No, it’s now owned by a billionaire doctor and inventor.

It doesn’t take very long to realize that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos, the owners of these papers respectively, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, the fact is that they have leaned in because they do not want the commercial consequences or the political consequences of having their papers continue in the pattern of political endorsements, presidential endorsements. But when you look at the argument that was made by the Washington Post, well, it turns out to be really interesting. The announcement was not made by the editorial board. Instead, it was made by William Lewis, who’s the publisher and chief executive officer at the Washington Post. Saturday’s print edition of the Washington Post, and I was in Washington when this landed states this, “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election, nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

And they went on after that to cite a statement made by the paper’s editorial board in 1960. Now, remember, the 1960 race pitted then vice president, Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee against Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee. And the newspaper stated then that it was on good grounds that it could be claimed this is one of the most important elections in American history. But in response to that, the paper did not then turn around, and remember this was the paper’s entire editorial board. It did not turn around then endorse either Nixon or Kennedy. It stated that it would be the policy of the paper not to make such an endorsement.

As a matter of fact, the Washington Post kept that policy until 1976 when fairly inexplicably, the editorial board went on to endorse former Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter, who was the Democratic nominee, and of course would eventually be elected president over President Gerald Ford. Again, I simply have to interject. It’s not exactly clear why the paper changed its policy in 1976. But since then, it’s basically kept to the policy of endorsing presidential candidates. By the time you get to the Democratic and Republican face off and the November election in presidential cycles, they have endorsed candidates. Well, guess what? All the candidates they have endorsed are democratic candidates. The history of the Los Angeles Times on this issue is similarly interesting, but in both cases, the big issue is it doesn’t take much investigation to figure out that it is the billionaire owners of these papers who don’t want the papers to make the endorsement.

Now, let’s also put another footnote in here. An interesting question is just how objective or even honest in reporting can a news organization be if it makes an endorsement in a race like that? In other words, wouldn’t an endorsement say if Kamala Harris taint all of the news coverage of everything that’s connected with the Washington Post? Well, the same thing would be true of the Los Angeles Times. The same thing would be equally true in every ways I can think about it here. But the fact is that most of these newspapers would claim that there is independence when it comes to the editorial board independence when it comes to the news staff. The Wall Street Journal makes the same claim. Other newspapers make this claim, but the fact is that if you are owned by one person, in the case of Jeff Bezos with the Washington Post, one doctor, when it comes to the Los Angeles Times, the fact is that these decisions are now going to be made at a different level and they’re going to be made at a time when these papers are not only controversial in terms of their liberal coverage and bias. They’re also controversial because they’re suffering in a digital age with so many people, frankly, getting their news elsewhere, which to yet another point, and that is this, this controversy is hot inside media circles. I don’t think the average American cares.

Now, the fact that the media class cares so much and the Democratic Party cares so much, well, that tells us something. But what it tells us is that there’s far more at stake here than the endorsement of these two newspapers because as a matter of fact, I don’t think it would make a dent in the election whatsoever, but it would dent two other realities. One is any claim of any kind of neutrality, any kind of objectivity, any kind of fairness when it comes to the news coverage of these vast media organizations.

Now, I believe that would otherwise be called transparency because I think they are just so overwhelmingly liberal that no one is really surprised if they endorse someone even to the left of a Democratic nominee. No, I think the fact is what this shows us is that these papers are largely self-referential in the same way that at both extremes, when you look at the political polarities in this country, the people within those polarities become very self-referential.

The fact is, however, that it’s the liberal side that has all the major mastheads, all the major newspapers, all the major legacy media sources. You can kind of sense what I’m talking about when you look at the statement made by the chief executive officer of the Washington Post. He’s also the publisher. He said, “Our job at the Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans and thought-provoking reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.” By the way, he went on to say, “Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city, the most important country in the world is to be independent, and that is what we are and will be.” Well, the fact is, let’s just call it what it is. They may be independent in some sense that they would define, but just to state the matter inelegantly, but simply, they’re not independent of the guy who owns the entire company.

Well, the most interesting controversy is within these two newspapers, for example, at the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Times Guild, that’s basically something like a labor union, according to the Washington Times, “Issued its own statement saying that it was deeply concerned the paper was not making a choice in the race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican rival former President Donald Trump.” The statement included these words, “We are deeply concerned about our owner’s decision to block a planned endorsement in the presidential race. We are even more concerned that he is now unfairly assigning blame to editorial board members for his decision not to endorse. We are still pressing for answers from newsroom management.”

Well, press on. But my guess is you’ve figured out the answer already. And speaking of self-referential, there’s nothing quite as self-referential as one newspaper reporting about another newspaper. So just after this announcement, the New York Times ran an article by a pair of reporters. The headline, “Endorsing Presidents Ends at Post.” The story began, “The Washington Post chief executive told the newsroom on Friday it would no longer endorse presidential candidates breaking with decades of precedent at the newspaper.”

Let me just point out, yes, this breaks with decades of precedent at the Washington Post, but their deciding to endorse at that time broke decades of precedent before. So it all depends which decades of precedent you want to cite. But later we are told, “Questions about whether the Post would endorse a candidate this year had spread for days. Some people speculated without any proof that the paper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, was being cowled by a prospective Trump administration because his other businesses have many federal government contracts.” Well, let’s just go to the top and think of Amazon. Undoubtedly that is true, and of course it goes far beyond that in terms of logistics. Well, probably many things we don’t even know about. But the fact is that is not unique to the Washington Post, and similar things are not unique to the Los Angeles Times. The fact is we are looking at conglomerations of giant businesses that each have their own interests and that’s going to affect their news coverage and their editorial decisions, and that is simply further evidence of how the world works. And Christians would say, it’s further evidence of the effects of the Fall.

But my favorite article on the decision of the Washington Post not to endorse a candidate came not on the editorial page, but on the front page of the next day’s newspaper, that is to say the Washington Post reporting on, wait just a minute, the Washington Post reported this way. “The Washington Post publisher said Friday that the paper will not make an endorsement in this year’s presidential contest for the first time in 36 years or in future presidential races.” Remember, this is the new staff of the Washington Post reporting on an announcement made by the publisher of the Washington Post, but they also had to report this. “The decision announced 11 days before an election that most polls show was too close to call drew immediate and heated condemnation from a wide swath of subscribers, political figures, and media commentators. I continue, “Robert Kagan, a longtime post columnist and editor at large in the opinion department resigned in protest and a group of 11 Washington Post columnists co-signed an article condemning the decision. Angry readers and sources flooded the email inboxes of numerous staffers with complaints.”

Similarly, a major editor of the Los Angeles Times resigned in protest after the similar announcement was made on the opposite coast, but the New York Times also came back and reported, “The Washington Post editorial writers had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive newsroom matters.” Almost sounds like they’re talking about some kind of moral or sexual affair here. No, they’re talking about something that means even more to them, and that is their own viewpoint being at least endorsed by their own newspaper. Or more precisely in this case, they’re outraged because their viewpoint is not being endorsed and they clearly think it should be.

Now again, I have to come back to the point that I think the decision not to endorse a candidate in this election on the part of these two newspapers, the Washington Post and the LA Times, not to take anything of their importance or stature from them, I don’t think it’s going to make any major difference in the way Americans actually vote on November the 5th. It does indicate something about the media class that is just so important, we dare not miss it. And here it is. When you look at the media class, it considers itself hand in hand with the liberal political class. And in this case, the liberal media class is bearing a lot of finger pointing for failing the liberal political class. And these resignations and protests are basically public ways of trying to say to the political class, “It’s not our fault. We didn’t do it.”

Part II

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Israel Sends a Clear Message to Iran: And the World Waits to See How Iran Will Respond to Israel’s Attack

But the next big issue we have to discuss today has nothing to do with the American press, but it does have to do with saying, “We did it.” In this case, they didn’t say, “We didn’t do it.” Israel actually for the first time ever acknowledged that it had launched a military attack upon Iran, its deadly enemy. It was a predawn attack by air that took place mostly before the dawn on Saturday morning, and it was a very effective military signal that was sent. Here’s the bottom line. Israel took responsibility for this because they want the entire world to know, beginning in Tehran, they want everyone to know that Israel has the capacity to send major supersonic aircraft on a mission that would go as far as Iran from Israel and then return the aircraft safely after accomplishing the mission. There is no doubt that that is a message that Israel sent. It is the message that Israel intended to send.

Now, the American administration and others had sent a message to Israel basically saying, “Target qualified military sites don’t go after oil production facilities or Iran’s nuclear capacity.” And the reason for the latter is that the Americans felt that it would be nearly impossible given the way those sites are now distributed to destroy Iran’s capacity, the likelihood of starting a far larger war was made more likely by that kind of attack. So whether or not Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel really cared exactly what the White House advised for Israel’s own reasons, it conducted the mission exactly as it did and its aircraft returned safely. The message sent. And it is documented that the sounds of an attack were heard in Tehran and in other Iranian cities. The big question now is how Iran will respond. Iran’s government acknowledged the Israeli attack, although they insinuated it had done limited damage.

Some American authorities believe that Iran’s characterization of limited damage is a face-saving maneuver so that they don’t have to launch an even more radical attack upon Israel that would bring a more devastating attack from Israel back on Iran. This is the way this game is played. The New York Times pointed to the significance of the attack with these words. “The attack was the first time that Israel has publicly acknowledged conducting a military operation inside Iran after years of maintaining a strategic silence about its assassinations and acts of sabotage on Iranian soil. It was also one of only a handful of attacks by a foreign air force in Iran since this war with Iraq in the 1980s.”

Now, I’m not saying that that report is lacking or inaccurate. I simply want to point out that if you’re talking about Israel taking responsibility for this attack as contrasted with this strategic silence “about its assassinations and acts of sabotage on Iranian soil previously,” I’ll just say that when it came to this kind of airborne attack coming from jet aircraft with strategic targeting made of Iran’s strategic assets, the fact is that Iran had no doubt who sent those airplanes, nor did the rest of the world. And at this point, Israel had absolutely no motivation to deny the obvious. They were sending a message. Message sent.

Part III

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Canada (And Others) Back Away from Open Border Policies: And the U.S. Needs an Honest Conversation About Immigration Policy

Coming back to the United States, of course, there are huge issues as the presidential election, and remember, the election is about more than the presidency, but the main focus undoubtedly is the presidency with that election now coming just a matter of eight days away. The fact is that it’s hard to think about just about anything else. All this week, we’re going to be taking different aspects of that electoral question and looking at recent developments, some of the big developments right now come down to the fact that the pollsters are absolutely, well, candid about the fact they really don’t have a clue.

So one of the things we’re going to look at this week on The Briefing is how this polling is done, and frankly, what the polling means, and how the political game is played even with how the data from one poll can be ignored or trumpeted loudly, or distorted in terms of analysis. But as we turn to close for today, I just want to say that one of the big issues and every single honest poll reveals this. One of the big issues in the 2024 election comes down to immigration. Big concerns in the United States about immigration, about an uncontrolled border, frankly, an open border policy effectively pushed and defended by successive administrations including the Biden administration. That’s a major issue. It’s one of the reasons why so many Americans fault the politicians who basically have pushed for an open borders policy. And what’s so amazing now in retrospect is that many of those politicians were pretty honest about that a matter of years ago.

That included, of course, many prominent Democrats, but frankly there were some Republicans who were pretty much on the wrong side of this issue if you go back a significant number of years. But the fact is, that Republicans for many years now have been very worried about this. Conservatives have been rightly very worried about this. And for reasons that go beyond just the basic anarchy of an open border, that means so many people who come into this country simply shouldn’t on the basis of criminal intent or other complications. Anyone who understands the necessity of a nation and a national border understands that if you don’t control that national border, you are basically subverting the very idea of your nation. Now, all nations have to decide how they’re going to handle people who want to come into their nation and become a part of their culture. But then, again, I took a leap of logic there by saying that those who come into the nation want to be a part of the culture. That’s one of the big issues that has to be honestly addressed.

And I want to point out that this is not just an American issue, and conservatives in the United States are not unique in being very dissatisfied with the existing government, the government in power on these issues. For example, the Washington Post just over the weekend ran a major article in the fact that, “In a major reversal, Canada is rolling up its welcome mat and restricting immigration.” And that’s an announcement that was made even recently by the Labor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who very famously was very pro-immigration. Canada has been basically, in one sense, pro-immigration more so than the United States. But guess what? The Canadians have met a limit.

Now, according to this Washington Post article, one of the main concerns is limited housing and Canada as well as many places in the United States, Canada is facing a housing crisis. But let’s face it, the most basic issue here is it’s not a housing crisis, it’s a cultural crisis. And it’s the understanding that every nation, if it wants to continue as a nation, has to at least determine that the people who are coming into that nation intend to join in that national project. And for Americans, that means buying into a certain set of political expectations built on a certain worldview. But then again, when the secular government in this country, and the media and the cultural elites are so confused about that, we shouldn’t be confused about the fact that that’s going to lead to very bad immigration policies.

But my point is, the Canadians have now blown a fuse on the issue of immigration, and even the Canadian prime Minister, very liberal figure, has to reckon with that. The same thing’s true in France. It’s true in Belgium. It’s true in the United Kingdom. It’s true just about everywhere where you’ve had an influx of immigration. And frankly, you are looking at a fact when you look at a nation like Germany, that it may bring down more than one government this year. And in the United States, that would mean a switch of parties, which is exactly the big question as we face the November 5th election. I simply have to say on this issue, the American people would be very well served if there could be an honest exchange of basic convictions and worldviews on the issue of immigration. And then Americans could honestly judge which worldview, which set of assumptions, which policies, which laws they believe would actually meet the character and the commitments of this nation. Not to mention its constitution.

I can simply say that I hope all the attention, at least supposedly given to immigration in the 2024 election cycle, I can say we can only hope that leads to an honest conversation in this country, and frankly, an honest improvement in the legislation of this country in order to accomplish what will be necessary for the future of this country. The most foundational, fundamental, the most basic questions of our national existence, they’re all involved here. They’re all invoked in this question. And anyone who argues otherwise is just being dishonest. And as for honesty, let’s just face it, that’s a real good place to start.