According to a study by Nieman Labs, nearly three-quarters of the country's major newspapers declined to issue a presidential endorsement in the 2024 election.
[464] The editorial boards of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times planned to endorse Kamala Harris.
[485] The Poynter Institute noted that moves by the owners of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times (as well as the Minnesota Star Tribune) to stop endorsing presidential candidates follow a trend seen at regional newspapers.
Newspaper chains Gannett, McClatchy, and Alden-owned MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing have largely ended endorsements.
[489] A Harris endorsement was drafted by the editorials department in early October and sent to Bezos for a final sign-off, who decided to not publish it.
[493] Over several weeks, two editorial board members worked on a draft,[493] which opinion editor David Shipley approved.
"[493] During a routine visit to Florida in September, Post leaders including Shipley and Lewis discussed with Bezos the future of the opinion section.
[491] Robert Kagan, a columnist and editor-at-large resigned within an hour,[490][491] calling it "an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory".
[491] Michele Norris resigned two days later, calling it "an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976.
[499] The Post's chief technology officer directed engineers to block responses from its AI search tool about the decision.
[493] Matt Welch, writing for Reason magazine, argued that not endorsing was a cost-cutting measure, citing a Poynter Institute article which stated that editorials are generally among the least-read content of a newspaper.
[108] Gannett subsidiaries include the Times Herald-Record, The Palm Beach Post, Detroit Free Press,[506] USA Today,[108] and the The Des Moines Register,[507] all of which endorsed Biden in 2020.