The New York Times’ editorial board made an endorsement for president on Monday. And they endorsed … not Donald Trump.

Technically, they did endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, and they do tout the many reasons why Harris is their pick. But, mostly, they’re endorsing Harris because she happens to be the one running against Trump.

The Times editorial board started right out of the gate by blasting the former president, writing, “It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.”

Before even writing Harris’ name, the Times board goes on to write, “Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates. This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.”

The endorsement says it all in the headline: “The Only Patriotic Choice for President.”

The editorial goes on to praise Harris, but they also criticize her for not being more detailed in her vision and specific policies, especially in unscripted encounters. The board adds, “Given the stakes of this election, Ms. Harris may think that she is running a campaign designed to minimize the risks of an unforced error — answering journalists’ questions and offering greater policy detail could court controversy, after all — under the belief that being the only viable alternative to Mr. Trump may be enough to bring her to victory. That strategy may ultimately prove winning, but it’s a disservice to the American people and to her own record. And leaving the public with a sense that she is being shielded from tough questions, as Mr. Biden has been, could backfire by undermining her core argument that a capable new generation stands ready to take the reins of power.”

However, in comparison to Trump, The New York Times thinks the choice is obvious. The board writes about the danger Trump poses to our democracy, as well as all that has happened since he left the White House in January 2021: “In the years since he left office, Mr. Trump was convicted on felony charges of falsifying business records, was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and faces two, possibly three, other criminal cases. He has continued to stoke chaos and encourage violence and lawlessness whenever it suits his political aims, most recently promoting vicious lies against Haitian immigrants. He recognizes that ordinary people — voters, jurors, journalists, election officials, law enforcement officers and many others who are willing to do their duty as citizens and public servants — have the power to hold him to account, so he has spent the past three and a half years trying to undermine them and sow distrust in anyone or any institution that might stand in his way.”

The board concludes: “Kamala Harris is the only choice.”

This really comes as no surprise. The Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican since Dwight Eisenhower ran for reelection in 1956.

But we should ask: Does a Times endorsement mean anything? Or, maybe a better question is, what does a Times endorsement mean?

Well, first off, here’s a reminder for those not versed in newspapers: The editorial board is separate from the newsroom. The editorial board gives the official stance of the paper or, more clearly, speaks on behalf of the owners and/or publisher. But it has nothing to do with the newsroom, the political staff of the paper and those who actually cover the candidates.

The Times editorial board tells readers, “The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.”

The “separate from the newsroom” part emphasizes that they don’t influence — or are not supposed to — news coverage.

So back to the question: What does it mean?

The Times’ endorsement of Harris likely won’t sway any voters at this point. Maybe the arguments it makes will give some voters a second thought, but probably not.

But it does make public the Times’ official stance on who should be the next president. And the Times’ point that Harris’ campaign is playing it safe is a fair one that we might remember should Harris lose in November.

Most of all, the endorsement is a document we can look back at years from now to record this election and the moments leading up to it.

Fact-checking tonight’s debate

The vice presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz will take place tonight, and I wanted to dig a little deeper into the debate rules and format — specifically the fact-checking aspect of it.

CBS News is hosting the debate, with Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan serving as moderators. It is CBS News’ intent to facilitate the debate. What does that mean? Well, they will ask the questions, and if a candidate says something untrue it will mostly be up to the other candidate to point that out. The moderators could conceivably prod a candidate by saying something like, “Would you like to respond to that claim?”

My Poynter colleague Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network, told The Associated Press’ David Bauder, “ … you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”

However, if a candidate does not call out his opponent for saying something that isn’t true, it’s possible the moderators could offer some clarification. Would they go as far as to say, “What (the candidate) just said is not accurate” or something like that? We shall see.

Claudia Milne, the senior vice president for standards and practices at CBS News, told The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin, “The goal of the debate is to facilitate a good debate between the candidates, and the moderators will give them the opportunity to fact-check each other in real time.”

CBS News Confirmed will be live fact-checking the debate on its blog, and CBS viewers will be directed to it during the television feed via a QR code. However, though the debate will be simulcast on other networks, the QR code will only be seen on CBS. If you watch the debate on a different channel, you won’t see it.

Still, there’s a fear that if the moderators do not crack down with fact-checking then the candidates will be free to say whatever they want. For instance, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz notes, that left unchecked, Vance could continue his (and the Trump campaign’s) baseless claims about immigrants. Vance has repeatedly put forth the untrue conspiracy that Haitans are eating the pets of citizens in Springfield, Ohio.

Gertz wrote, “Since Vance has publicly touted his willingness to say dishonest things about immigrants in order to drive media attention to the issue, he seems likely to push a version of Trump’s lie on Tuesday night.”

Will CBS News’ moderators push back? That remains to be seen.

Oh, one more note. The candidates’ microphones are supposed to stay on throughout the debate. In the two presidential debates this campaign season, the microphones were to be cut off if a candidate spoke out of turn. However, there were times in the debate between Trump and Harris where ABC allowed Trump to talk even when the moderators wanted to move on to the next question. As a result, in that debate according to CNN, Trump spoke for 42 minutes and 52 seconds, while Harris spoke for 37 minutes and 36 seconds.

Meet the moderators

To get you ready for tonight, The Los Angeles Times’ Stephen Battaglio with “Meet the Walz-Vance debate moderators: Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell.”

Storm coverage

A worker moves debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, on Monday, in Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Hurricane Helene turned out to be a monster. The Category 4 hurricane scooted up the Gulf of Mexico just west of the Tampa Bay area before making landfall in the Big Bend part of the state. It then raced through the Southeast — up through Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

From storm surge on the West Coast of Florida to torrential rains through the central Appalachians, Hurricane Helene flooded entire communities and towns, leaving some to either leave forever or rebuild almost from scratch.

As of Monday afternoon, the storm was responsible for at least 125 deaths — a third of them in North Carolina. That number is likely to climb. Millions lost power, and some might not have it for weeks.

Here’s a look at some of the latest notable coverage:

• Reporting from Marshall, North Carolina, The New York Times’ Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs with “For Hours, He Clung to a Tree and Cried for Help. But None Came.”
• The Washington Post’s Brady Dennis with “‘Completely and entirely erased’: How Helene swallowed one mountain town.”
• Also from the Post, Scott Dance with “A storm-battered town lost cell service. A country music station came to the rescue.”
• CNN’s Brian Stelter with “Local broadcasters become lifeline for hard-hit North Carolina communities in wake of Helene’s wrath.”
• NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel, Scott Neuman, Camila Domonoske with “A tiny town just got slammed by Helene. It could massively disrupt the tech industry.”
• The Washington Post’s Molly Hennessy-Fiske with “A sought-after Florida beach town digs out after Hurricane Helene.”
• From the Tampa Bay Times and environment and climate reporter Max Chesnes: “Before-and-after aerial images show how Hurricane Helene hurt Tampa Bay.”

More on Hoda Kotb

As I wrote about last week, Hoda Kotb has decided to step down as co-host of the NBC “Today” show sometime early next year. Kotb just turned 60, and says she wants to dedicate more time to her young children, and is looking to see what else her life and career have to offer. She also goes out with “Today” show ratings doing well.

Puck’s Dylan Byers writes that “all that is indisputably true,” and that Kotb kicked around the idea of leaving after she turned 50.

“Nevertheless,” Byers wrote, “the choreography of Hoda’s exit also belied some unpalatable economic realities that the smoothie-sipping audience didn’t really need to hear about. Hoda was making more than $20 million per year at NBC, according to sources with direct knowledge of her salary. (‘Today” co-host) Savannah (Guthrie) also makes more than $20 million; (former co-host Matt) Lauer had made $25 million.) NBC executives loved Hoda and knew her value to the brand, but also made clear to her agents that such stratospheric contracts were no longer justifiable given the industry’s inexorable decline.”

Byers reported that Kotb likely was in for a pay cut had she stayed.

And this could be the beginning of a trend. Byers writes, “After all, the current economic arrangement is entirely unsustainable. ‘Good Morning America’ co-hosts George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, and Michael Strahan cost Disney at least $75 million a year, a ludicrous expense that will need to be greatly reduced during the next round of contract negotiations. Both Stephanopoulos and Roberts are 63, and may determine they don’t want to be paid less to wake up before 4 a.m. to service a shrinking audience.”

We also could see moves that will eventually save money on the evening news anchor desks. Norah O’Donnell is leaving the “CBS Evening News” and being replaced by two anchors who are likely making less money combined than O’Donnell. And, Byers reports, “Lester Holt, now 65, is likely to step down from NBC Nightly News following the inauguration and may be replaced by Tom Llamas, a far less expensive talent who has spent three years getting his reps in on the streaming service.”

Media tidbits

• Trey Yingst, chief foreign correspondent for Fox News who has been covering the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East, has a new book out today: “Black Saturday: An Unfiltered Account of the October 7th Attack on Israel and the War in Gaza.” He also talked with People’s Vanessa Etienne for “Journalist Suffers PTSD from Covering War in Gaza, ‘Hell on Earth’: ‘You Can’t Escape.’”
• The Washington Post’s Will Sommer with “The Onion is pivoting to video — no joke — with a former MSNBC anchor.”
• The Hollywood Reporter’s Lily Ford with “How the World’s Top News Orgs Hope to Tackle Misinformation as a Historic U.S. Election Looms.”
• This is a few days old, but worth the read. For The Athletic, Zak Keefer and Dan Duggan with “A night with the ‘ManningCast’: Voice memos, legendary cameos help redefine NFL broadcast.”

Hot type

• From Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of Rudy Giuliani: “Trump Took My Dad From Me. Please Don’t Let Him Take Our Country Too.”

More resources for journalists

• It’s time to apply for the Leadership Academy for Women in Media.
• Understand critical aspects of the swiftly evolving AI landscape at Level Up.
• Free webinar: The journalists’ guide to debunking health misinformation

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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