Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz said Friday that the Washington Post was a “profile in non-courage” when it elected not to endorse in the 2024 presidential election.
The Post’s decision, which it announced Friday, followed a similar move by the Los Angeles Times, which said it would make no endorsement Tuesday. Kurtz noted that the non-endorsements, which were ordered by the owners of the newspapers, resulted in a “backlash.”
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“Look, this is a profile in non-courage, an absolute wimping out. Now Jeff Bezos does have the right to do this, but at the same time, the other 364 days a year, the liberal Washington Post tells us what to think about everything, every issue under the sun, and all of a sudden comes onto the most important question like, ‘Oh, we couldn’t possibly give you our opinion now,’” Kurtz, a former Washington Post employee, told Fox News host Martha MacCallum.
“And so I think Jeff Bezos, by the way, does a lot of business with the federal government through his rocket company, through Amazon, and he may fear that Trump is going to win, and he doesn’t want to exacerbate their already testy relationship,” Kurtz said.
MacCallum noted that not only had the Post and Times stayed neutral, but she also noted the non-endorsement decisions from the Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters earlier in the campaign.
“In both cases, L.A. Times and Washington Post, there were editorials drafted favoring Kamala Harris, and the billionaire owner of the L.A. Times not only killed it, but three top editors have now resigned in protest when people have canceled their subscriptions, so the idea that, oh, we don’t want to be divisive and this is up to our readers to make up their minds, sure most newspaper editorials don’t matter much anymore, but it is interesting that they are pulling back on this, the most important decision of the year, after they’ve lectured us all on every issue,” Kurtz said.
“They’ve been anti-Trump mostly, more recently largely pro-Kamala Harris, and yet both of the owners are saying, I run the place, and you’re not running that Harris endorsement,’” he continued.
Former President Donald Trump trails Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.1% in the RealClearPolling average of polls from Oct. 11 to 24, but the two are tied when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, independent candidate Cornel West and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver are included in surveys.
Featured Image Credit: Daniel X. O’Neil from USA
