Last week a bunch of journalists threw public tantrums after they were barred from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. Some of them quit their jobs in protest. The performative outrage continued this week as three Washington Post employees (that no one has ever heard of) announced their resignations while dozens of other journalists ranted self-righteously on social media.
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Michele Norris, an opinion columnist for the Post, announced her resignation on Sunday. As self-important journalists are wont to do, she posted a lengthy statement explaining the moral justification for her outrage. Norris blasted the Post's decision to refrain from endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024 (and beyond) a "terrible mistake." She was "deeply disappointed" that the paper had declined to publish an endorsement that would have provided readers with "guidance based on muscular independent analysis." Norris previously worked at NPR. Her husband, Comcast executive Broderick Johnson, served as cabinet secretary under former President Barack Obama.
Two relatively obscure members of the Post editorial board, Molly Roberts and David Hoffman, quit their jobs on Monday, bringing the total number of resignations to four. Robert Kagan, the paper's editor at large, resigned on Friday shortly after publisher Will Lewis announced the decision to withhold a presidential endorsement. Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland, a former Biden administration official who hosted a fundraiser for Harris last month.
Roberts and Hoffman were among the 20 opinion columnists at the Post who signed their names to an angsty statement on Friday that condemned the endorsement decision as "an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love." Endorsements were crucial, the columnists argued, because they provide "guidance to readers" and allow journalists to make "a statement of core beliefs," especially in this election when "one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution."
The remaining 18 signatories to the statement, including the anti-Trump fanatic Jennifer Rubin, have yet to resign. Rubin's lack of conviction is particularly shocking in light of her praise for the three members of the Los Angeles Times editorial board who quit after they were similarly barred from endorsing Harris last week. "Brava. That is courage," Rubin wrote after Times editorials editor Mariel Garza resigned. "And shame on her boss for not joining her."
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Post opinion writers Karen Attiah and Dana Milbank, who also signed the statement of angst but have yet to resign, vented their displeasure in columns published over the weekend. "As misinformation, confusion, dissonance, anxiety and anger spread through America, The Washington Post must be a beacon," Attiah wrote. "The way democracy dies in darkness is if journalism is left to die in cowardice." In a column explaining his decision not to quit, Milbank revealed that one of his wife's Facebook friends said that continuing to subscribe to the Post was tantamount to Nazi appeasement, suggesting Post journalists should lose their jobs like "coal miners who lose their income when polluting mines close." He obviously disagreed. Instead of canceling their subscriptions to a paper that lost $77 million last year, Milbank argued that disgruntled readers would "achieve more by knocking on doors and making calls for Harris for the next eight days."
Nevertheless, more than 200,000 people had canceled their Post subscriptions as of Monday afternoon. Egged on by furious liberals, many of these former readers publicly announced it on social media in a self-righteous display of moral conviction. Milbank wasn't the only journalist who complained.
"Canceling a newspaper subscription helps politicians who don’t want oversight, does nothing to hurt the billionaires who own the newspapers and make decisions with which you may disagree, and will result in fewer journalists trying to hold the powerful to account," wrote Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor best known for dating Monica Lewinsky. He was referring to Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who allegedly blocked the paper's endorsement. Ellen Cushing, a staff writer at the Atlantic, urged the aggrieved Post readers to cancel their Amazon Prime subscription instead.
Easier said than done. "I just canceled my subscription to the @washingtonpost," former MSNBC analyst Joan Walsh proudly declared. "You should too." She was less enthusiastic after a commenter suggested a "more effective protest" would be refusing to buy stuff on Amazon. "Much harder but considering," Walsh replied.
Most normal Americans have observed the performative outrage with mild to extreme amusement. They find it difficult to understand why so many journalists are shrieking hysterically because they can't publish an essay about why Donald Trump is bad, especially given the fact that precisely zero voters would change their minds after reading it. Most people despise the media these days. Nearly 70 percent of Americans said they don't trust the media to report the news "fully, accurately, and fairly," according to a Gallup survey published last month. Many journalists are unwilling or unable to accept this reality. Even fewer would suggest that throwing partisan tantrums might contribute to the public's lack of trust.
Some have argued the Post's non-endorsement was a savvy business decision intended to trim payroll costs by compelling its most partisan employees to resign. Others have been surprised by how relatively few journalists—just seven so far between the Times and the Post—actually quit their jobs after their publications declined to endorse the Democrat running against Donald Trump, someone most journalists believe is literally Adolf Hitler.
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Maybe it's because, as the former president has repeatedly (and accurately) argued, Trump was "the best thing to ever happen" to the mainstream media. Journalists made a killing on books about the Trump administration. Media outlets enjoyed record profits during that time, then started losing money as soon as President Joe Biden was sworn in. The Post, for instance, lost half a million subscribers in the first two years after Trump left office. One could reasonably argue that a Kamala Harris presidency would decimate the journalism industry.
Bless their little hearts, the poor things.