Less than two weeks before the US Election Day, The Washington Post says it will not endorse a candidate for president in this year's tightly contested race and would avoid doing so in the future.
The decision on Friday was immediately condemned by a former executive editor and one that the current publisher insisted was "consistent with the values the Post has always stood for".
In an article posted on the front of its website, the Post - reporting on its own inner workings - also quoted anonymous sources within the publication as saying an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump had been written but not published. Those sources told the Post reporters that the company's owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, made the decision.
Sources say the WaPo's owner Jeff Bezos made the decision for the paper not to endorse anyone. (AP PHOTO)
The publisher of the Post, Will Lewis, wrote in a column the decision was actually a return to a tradition the paper had years ago of not endorsing candidates. He said it reflected the paper's faith in "our readers' ability to make up their own minds".
"We recognise that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable," Lewis wrote.
"We don't see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects."
There was no immediate reaction from either campaign.
The Post isn't the only one going this route
Lewis cited the Post's history in writing about the decision. According to him, the Post only started regularly endorsing candidates for president when it backed Jimmy Carter in 1976.
The Post said the decision had "roiled" many on the opinion staff, which operates independently from the Post's newsroom staff - what is known commonly in the industry as a "church-state separation" between those who report the news and those who write opinion.
The Post's move comes the same week that the Los Angeles Times announced a similar decision, which triggered the resignations of its editorial page editor and two other members of the editorial board. In that instance, the Times' owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, insisted he had not censored the editorial board, which had planned to endorse Harris.
Many American newspapers have been dropping editorial endorsements in recent years. That is in large part because at a time readership has been dwindling, they don't want to give remaining subscribers and news consumers a reason to get mad and cancel their subscriptions.
For the Post, the decision is certain to generate debate beyond the news cycle. It seemed to acknowledge this with a note from the paper's letters and community editor at the top of the comments section on the publisher's column: "I know many of you will have strong feelings about this note from Mr. Lewis."
Indeed, by midafternoon, the column had elicited more than 7000 comments, many critical. Said one, riffing off the Post's slogan, "Democracy Dies in Darkness": "Time to change your slogan to 'Democracy dies in broad daylight.'"