WASHINGTON: The Washington Post newspaper, owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced on Friday it would endorse neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

William Lewis, the CEO, said this was a return “to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates”. However, the Post editorial board has endorsed candidates for much of the last four decades — all of them Democrats — before deciding to stay on the sidelines in one of the most polarising elections in US history.

Newspaper editorials have little of their once-powerful political heft. But the Post _ whose slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness” _ is one of a small number of traditional media outlets that still retain considerable influence among Washington’s elite.

The decision to sidestep controversy comes days after one of Trump’s most senior aides during his presidency said the Republican had praised Hitler and was himself “fascist” _ a characterisation repeated by Kamala Harris in a CNN town hall event.

Trump, meanwhile, says he represents the last chance to prevent the United States, claiming erroneously that the country is inundated with violent migrants and has become a “garbage dump”.

The Post’s decision follows a similar move by another of the big remaining US newspapers, the Los Angeles Times.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2024