No surprise. The Wall Street Journal ran the first of two editorials on the major party presidential contenders Wednesday night, while also confirming that it will continue its 92-year-old tradition of not endorsing.
First up was Kamala Harris; thoughts on Donald Trump to follow soon. The Journal offered a mixed-to-negative review under the headline, “A Harris Victory Means a Fourth Obama Term.”
The editorial attacked her as a free spender on an array of domestic programs and said it lacked confidence in how she would handle a “dangerous moment” in foreign affairs. It gave a nod to her running a capable campaign on short notice and trouncing Trump in the debate. The editorial writers also sympathized with Republicans who are breaking with their party because of their loathing of Trump.
The Journal’s voluminous opinion section has seemingly been at war with itself since Harris entered the race, going back and forth about whether to fear more her “progressive” policies or Trump’s erratic behavior, worsening as the campaign goes on.
Even without an endorsement, the pair of essays could hint at how the Journal would like to see you vote. Benjamin Mullin, now a New York Times media reporter, pinpointed in a 2016 Poynter story that a skewering of Hillary Clinton was a Trump recommendation in disguise.
The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today have earned varying degrees of angry pushback from staff and readers for not endorsing. The Journal’s predictability will keep the peace among those constituencies. You could argue that the Journal’s approach of letting the voter decide without a thumb on the scale was the way to go right along.
I’ll offer a mild dissent. “We haven’t endorsed since Herbert Hoover” is catchy but also evasive. Isn’t that just a dressed-up version of the dispiriting “we’ve always done it that way” excuse?
The Journal also kept readers happy for decades by running acres of stock tables. Then that didn’t make sense anymore and they stopped.
Diamonds are forever, but why, exactly, are nonendorsements, too?
This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.
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