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In the late 1970s I was a columnist and editorial board member at the Washington Post, more suited to writing columns than editorials, since one doesnāt need to know anything to write a column, whereas editorials require a certain amount of authority and expertise. I was an expert in nothing, and so only the oddest assignments were tossed my way.
A man had murdered a goose on a Maryland golf course. Told to determine the seriousness of the crime, I wrote my piece and asked my editor, Meg Greenfield, for a āhed,ā or headline. These were the days when placards were hoisted outside the White House telling drivers to blow their horns if they believed Richard M. Nixon should be ousted. For the title of my editorial on avicide, Meg suggested āHonk If You Think Heās Guilty.ā
It was fun writing for the Postās editorial page in those days, serious fun, in that a small number of good-natured people were asked to guide the paperās many estimable readers toward decisions important to their lives. Father Goose was mere comic relief, and functioning as comic relief, it emphasized by contrast the seriousness of the other editorials of that day on the economy and government projects and all matters that might be useful to a trusting public.
The public trusted us to arrive at opinions useful to them. They respected the paper. The paper respected them. And Katharine Graham, the owner of the paper, respected both her writers and our readers.
Graham was a monumental figure in journalism, not principally because she was a woman, and not because she was rich, but because she was principled and understood that a newspaper represents a tacit agreement between journalists and readers that the common good requires thought, honesty, and fair play.
So scrupulous was Kay, as most everyone called her, that whenever she sat in on our boardās daily meetings, she never said a word, or gave a nod, or tossed a glance that would indicate her opinion. She knew that her opinion was likely to be taken as law, and she was not about to abuse her authority. No one could have been more āinā the Washington Post than Kay, yet she stayed out of the ed boardās business because she understood the moral requirements of power.
To say such a thing these days is so antique as to sound ludicrous. The moral requirements of power? Tell that to Elon Musk, who has returned from outer space to attempt to buy a presidential election. Tell that to Donald Trump himself, who speaks of using the military against his opponents. And tell that to Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post now and who has ordered the current editorial board not to support one candidate or the other.
Bezosās defenders claim the Post has a long tradition of neutrality in elections. Well, I donāt know how long is long, but the past fifty years would seem sufficient to me to establish a tradition. And the main point is that Bezos stuck his nose in an honorable procedure, thus treating a newspaper as if it were any commodity. As if it belonged to him alone.
So is the question whether billionaires should own newspapers? Patrick Soon-Shiong, billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, beat Bezos to the punch by forbidding that paper from endorsing a presidential candidate. But the Ochs-Sulzberger family, also wealthy, who have owned the New York Times since 1896, seem to have no trouble letting the paper of record operate freely. And the rich owners of other papers in the country seem to have no trouble recognizing that their commodities are trusts.
No, the problem isnāt money. Itās the way one looks at money. To be specific about the coming election, if Soon-Shiong and Bezos are loath to support Kamala Harris over Donald Trumpāthe likely decision of their papersā editorial boardsāit is their pockets they are looking after, not the welfare of the readers they are supposed to serve.
And they are supposed to serve their readers by giving them the very best thought the paper can summon. Not only does a fair editorial say to the reader, Make up your own mind; it gives that reader the highest expression of that thought, honoring them the way a good poem or essay or novel does. It is a celebration of the mind itself, and as such is a work of generous imagination.
Would the support of the Post or of any paper have made a difference in the election? Would enough readers be swayed by the passion and language of a good editorial to vote one way or the other? I doubt it. Editorials are not cause-and-effect entities. They state a case as forcefully, persuasively, and beautifully as a case may be stated. Then they rest, having done their work.
The blocking of the endorsement has already triggered an exodus from the paper: columnists Robert Kagan and Michele Norris have resigned, along with editorial writer Molly Roberts. David Hoffman, a forty-two-year veteran of the Post, is leaving the editorial board, though he plans to continue writing for the paper; only last week, Hoffman received his Pulitzer Prize for an editorial series, āAnnals of Autocracy.ā In his letter resigning from the board, he wrote: āI believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump. I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.ā
I know of several long-term subscribers to the Post who have canceled their subscriptions; NPR just reported that there have been 200,000 cancellations. Others have called for canceling Amazon Prime in lieu of the Post. Their cancellations wonāt put a dent in the Bezos coffers. I suggest something else. To all those who are driving around in the vicinity of the Bezos Washington Post, honk if you think heās guilty. And donāt lift your hand from the horn.
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