Once upon a time, when newspapers covered both sides of an issue, editorial endorsements might have moved a voter in Michigan or persuaded some undecided soul in Pennsylvania (hi, Mom).
Those days are long gone, which may explain the astonished outrage this election season when a couple of legacy papers—The Los Angeles Times, and then The Washington Post—decided not to endorse a candidate. The responses were apoplectic.
Karen Attiah, of the Washington Post editorial board, wrote that she and her colleagues “were betrayed” by the lack of endorsement of Harris. Newsroom staffers publicly posted their disagreement; one wrote that her own parents unsubscribed from the paper. Others, trying to stave off the wave of cancellations, suggested that those angry about the lack of endorsement cancel their Amazon Prime accounts rather than their Washington Post subscriptions, as a way of sending a message to their owner, who remains Amazon’s biggest shareholder despite no longer being CEO. (The Post has reportedly lost 250,000, or 10 percent, of its digital subscribers over the decision.)
The most delicious publication-endorsement fight of this cycle was at The Nation. The left-wing magazine endorsed Kamala Harris, which apparently outraged the interns, who then wrote an op-ed of their own arguing the endorsement was “unearned and disappointing” given the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel.
We’ve received a lot of questions about whether and who we’d endorse in this election. Given our mission of not telling readers what to think, but rather giving them the information necessary to make their own decisions, we will not endorse a candidate.
We did, however, poll our staff at our recent retreat. We didn’t do it with the expectation of sharing the results. Rather, we did it on account of a relentlessly curious producer who took advantage of the fact that we were trapped together on a boat on the Hudson River.
They seem worth sharing now partly because they are not results you would find in any other American newsroom, but mostly because we are continually told that the country is divided into reds and blues; into MAGA and the Resistance; into protesters and counter-protesters.
That’s not been our experience.
The staff of The Free Press is split almost exactly three ways in this election: between Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and, well, neither (abstaining, writing in their preferred candidate, or remaining undecided). Yes, there are still undecideds! In other words, our editorial staff is mixed. Just like the country we write about.
We have widely ranging views not just on the candidates but also the stakes of this election. Some think democracy is at stake and are profoundly fearful of Trump without the guardrails of men like H.R. McMaster and Jim Mattis. Others are far more sanguine, making the case that we endured four years of Trump and four years of Biden-Harris, and the republic survived.
Though it shouldn’t be, to have a newsroom that reflects the politics of America has become extraordinarily unusual.
At The New York Times, my friend Adam used to joke that the only people at the paper who voted for Trump were the delivery guys from Staten Island. Like all jokes, it was an oversimplification: There were also the plumbers, the electricians, and the porters at 620 Eighth Avenue.
And it’s not just the Times. It’s The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and ABC. At NPR’s D.C headquarters, as Uri Berliner reported in our pages, he found “87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None.” After Trump held his recent rally at Madison Square Garden, MSNBC ran footage of a pro-Nazi rally held there in 1939, just in case you missed the point. Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find a mainstream media outlet outside of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal that doesn’t have a newsroom—and often an opinion staff—that thinks as one.
Which is to say: The people whose job it is to tell you about the world in all its complications and contradictions have the same view about almost every important issue in American life. At the Times, every columnist—even the conservatives—opposes Trump’s election.
At The Washington Post, the furor among its journalists over Bezos’s squashing the Harris endorsement is not because their “independent journalism” is being harmed. It’s because, like most of their brethren in the mainstream media, they think it’s imperative for Harris to win. According to the Free Beacon, during a heated meeting with editorial page editor David Shipley, one editor blurted out: “One thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years.”
But half the country wants Donald Trump for another four years. Whether he wins or loses, half of America is voting for him. So isn’t it strange that the institutions that talk the most about diversity and inclusion can’t stomach those whose views align with half of Americans?
We flipped this dynamic on its head. At The Free Press, it’s okay to be liberal or conservative or politically nonbinary.
That’s because the fundamental value we share—with each other and with our readers—is a commitment to seeking and telling the truth, which allows us to disagree without disrespecting one another. We share an understanding that the truth isn’t something you bring back like a moon rock and put behind glass, but that the best answers you can get under changing circumstances in an ever-shifting world are always subject to revision.
We share the view that politics need not be a team sport. We share the view that our vocation is not about ushering readers to a political conclusion, but to tell stories that reflect the complicated nature of issues so often presented as simple and settled. If we knew in advance who—or what—was deplorable, we wouldn’t need journalism.
Most importantly, all of us believe that there is not an “enemy within” among our fellow Americans, nor do we believe in referring to any of them as “garbage.” And we are grateful for our privilege—one beautifully expressed by my Russia-born colleague Tanya Lukyanova, who became an American citizen a few months ago and will vote this year in a free and fair election for the very first time: “When I step into the voting booth I’ll think about how lucky I am to be here, where my vote is not just an act of resistance, but a genuine opportunity to make a choice.”
We know that our readers don’t come to The Free Press to be told what to think. You are here because you are independent minds and independent spirits.
We are proud of that fact and owe it to you, as much as to ourselves, to try with all our might to restore a culture where arguing, debating, persuading, disagreeing—as opposed to damning and silencing—are the norm. If we can’t sit next to colleagues who are voting differently, how can we sit next to them at our dining tables, or on a public bus or on a jury?
I can think of nothing more meaningful and important than building a publication and a community that aspires to that—and nothing more exhilarating than discovering not only in our newsroom but in our growing community that this is still a country of free people.
Whether you’re excited to vote, concerned about the future of U.S. democracy, desperate for the election from hell to be over—or all of the above!—we want to spend election night with you.
Join us for a marathon Free Press Live hosted by me, Michael Moynihan, Batya Ungar-Sargon, and an absolutely incredible lineup of guests including Abigail Shrier, Ana Kasparian, Andrew Yang, Anna Khachiyan, Ben Domenech, Brianna Wu, Catherine Herridge, Coleman Hughes, Dasha Nekrasova, Eli Lake, Eliana Johnson, Frank Luntz, Frannie Block, Joe Nocera, John McWhorter, Kat Rosenfield, Kmele Foster, Konstantin Kisin, Marianne Williamson, Mark Halperin, Matt Continetti, Matt Welch, Michael Shellenberger, Nancy Rommelmann, Nellie Bowles, Olivia Reingold, Olly Wiseman, Peter Savodnik, Rikki Schlott, Ritchie Torres, Ruy Teixeira, Salena Zito, Shane Smith, Sohrab Ahmari, Vivek Ramaswamy, and many more.
Our live coverage will begin November 5, starting at 7 p.m. ET. We’ll livestream on X and on YouTube—click this link and select “notify me” to receive a reminder once we’re live.
I’m told there will be drinking games. See you then.
our Comments
Use common sense here: disagree, debate, but don't be a .