News media endorsements in the 2024 United States presidential election

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Various newspapers and magazines endorsed candidates in the 2024 United States presidential election, as follows. Tables below also show which candidate each publication endorsed in the 2020 election (where known) and include only endorsements for the general election.

Some publications which had endorsed candidates in previous presidential elections made no endorsement in 2024.

Jeff Bezos in 2019

Patrick Soon-Shiong in 2014

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. The organization defined "major newspaper" as the one hundred largest daily newspapers. They found an increase among major newspaper making no endorsement from 9 in 2004, to 8 in 2008, to 23 in 2012, to 26 in 2016, to 44 in 2020 to 71 non-endorsers in 2024.^[454]

The editorial boards of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times planned to endorse Kamala Harris. The owners of the newspapers stopped their papers from publishing the endorsements less than two weeks before Election Day. The Post's owner since 2013, Jeff Bezos, instructed publisher William Lewis to not make an endorsement. The newspaper regularly endorsed presidential candidates since 1976.^[455] Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Times since 2018, also blocked an endorsement in the 2020 primaries. Newspaper editorials can reflect the views of the owners, who can play a role in the endorsement and sign off on them.^[456][457]

501(c)3 nonprofit news organizations do not endorse due to limitations associated with their non-profit status.^[458]

In 2020, the McClatchy group announced it would not be endorsing presidential candidates in that year's election. That includes the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.^[459]

The Chicago Sun-Times, which endorsed Biden in 2020,^[460] announced in 2022 that it would no longer make political endorsements.^[461]

In 2022, Alden Global Capital announced that its newspapers would no longer endorse presidential candidates.^[462] This included the Chicago Tribune,^[463] South Florida Sun Sentinel,^[464] Times-Standard, the Hartford Courant,^[465] The San Diego Union-Tribune,^[466] The Mercury News, East Bay Times, and the New York Daily News,^[467] all of which endorsed Biden in 2020.^{[468][469][470][471][472][473]}

The Santa Barbara News-Press, which endorsed Trump in 2020,^[474] ceased publication in 2023.^[475]

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.^[476]

The decision by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong to not run the editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris prompted the resignation of the Times' editorials editor, Mariel Garza, alongside multiple other staffers.^[477][478] They have also led to significant subscription cancellations.^[479]

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.^[480][481] William Lewis, the publisher and chief executive officer of the paper, published an essay giving his reasons for the choice to not issue an endorsement.^[482][483] Lewis said that the primary reason was "returning to our roots" of not endorsing in presidential contests, and giving a history, which included the Post starting to endorse in 1976.^[483]

Over several weeks, two editorial board members worked on a draft,^[483] which opinion editor David Shipley approved.^[457] The endorsement stalled in early October, but mid-month Lewis told the editorial board that the endorsement would continue, adding "this is obviously something our owner has an interest in."^[483] During a routine visit to Florida in September, Post leaders including Shipley and Lewis discussed with Bezos the future of the opinion section.^[481] Bezos had reservations about endorsing either candidate, and ultimately decided not to publish one.^[481] Shipley and Lewis both made an attempt to persuade Bezos to continue with endorsements, but Bezos had been considering this for weeks. He did not read the drafted opinion.^[481] Days before the public decision, staffers began talking about the lack of an endorsement, and if there would be one.^[457][484]

The Post's decision was criticized by staffers in the opinions and news divisions.^[455][456] The editorial board was informed by Shipley in a regular meeting,^[481] who reacted strongly against the decision.^{[455][480][483]} One board member told Semafor that "people are shocked, furious, surprised" at the announcement.^[480] The newsroom learned about the decision midday.^[481] Robert Kagan, a columnist and editor-at-large resigned within an hour,^[480][481] calling it "an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory".^[456] Nineteen Post columnists signed an open letter opposing the decision, calling it "a terrible mistake."^[485] Investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein called the decision "surprising and disappointing".^[455] Former executive editor Martin Baron called it "cowardice, with democracy as its casualty".^[480][486] Former editor Marcus Brauchli called it called it "craven".^[455] The Post's union, the Washington Post Guild, released a statement of concern.^[455] Political cartoonist Ann Telnaes posted an artwork titled "Democracy Dies in Darkness," the motto of the Post, of a rectangle covered in gray paint strokes.^[481] Michele Norris resigned two days later, calling it "an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976."^[487]

Readers reacted negatively to the pulling of Harris' endorsement. More than 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscription, and others sent emails to reporters' inboxes to complain.^[480][488] Confused readers of the New York Times canceled subscriptions to the wrong outlet.^[489] The Post's chief technology officer directed engineers to block responses from its AI search tool about the decision.^[481][457]

Some critics alleged that Bezos wanted to avoid conflict with Trump.^[490] Opinion columnist Dan Froomkin, writing in Salon.com, speculated that Bezos may have been motivated by "anticipatory obedience".^[491] Timothy Snyder, who theorizes about anticipatory obedience, also speculated that Bezos may have been driven by this motivation.^[492] Trump, in his campaign, has threatened vengeance on the media for negative coverage of him.^[457] Bezos' companies have contracts worth billions of dollars with the federal government, such as Blue Origin.^[486] Hours after Lewis' statement, Blue Origin executives met with Donald Trump.^{[493][490][481]} Amazon, the company Bezos founded, is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for anticompetitive behavior.^[483] Soon-Shiong's pharmaceutical companies are developing drugs that require future approval from the Food and Drug Administration.^[483]

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.^[494]

The Gannett group announced in October 2024 that its publications would not publish presidential endorsements in the upcoming election, allowing the outlets to endorse candidates at the state and local levels at their own discretion.^[495]

USA Today justified its lack of endorsement, noting it had never endorsed any presidential candidate except for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, and that happened due to the “extraordinary moment” in history that required an “extraordinary response” from the paper.^[106]

Gannett subsidiaries include the Times Herald-Record, The Palm Beach Post, Detroit Free Press,^[496] USA Today,^[106] and the The Des Moines Register,^[497] all of which endorsed Biden in 2020.^{[498][499][500][501][502]}

Other independent papers chose not to endorse candidates in the 2024 cycle. The list includes the News-Register,^[503] which endorsed Biden in 2020.^[504]