I write this with the expectation that the presidential election will leave America a badly divided country, poisoned by streams of political lying and disinformation. There are legitimate concerns that our divisions will lead to violence.
However the election turns out, the country will need institutions and individuals to stand against the forces of intolerance and autocracy. That, of course, includes hard-working, well-resourced, dutiful journalists, like those who work at The Washington Post.
My knowledge of the excellence of those reporters and editors is not an abstraction. I have collaborated with them over the years, and just this month, conducted a Zoom session for the Post on the power of short writing, attended by dozens of writers and editors looking to perfect their craft.
Since then, as many as a quarter of a million readers have canceled their subscriptions to the Post, according to NPR media reporter David Folkenflik. That is a stunning and heartbreaking number.
Those folks are pissed at the Post’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos. The Amazonian entrepreneur put the kibosh on an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris for president. Endorsements, he and others have argued, magnify the impression of bias, and undercut the idea that a news organization is capable of true independence in its news judgments.
I strongly disagree with this take and wish that the Post — and my own newspaper the Tampa Bay Times — had published presidential endorsements. The general feeling among journalists and others is that Bezos, who owns businesses vulnerable to Washington political actions, chose not to antagonize a vengeful future president.
My dad, Theodore Roosevelt Clark, was famous for his catchphrases, one of which I never understood. “Boys,” he told his sons, “Never cut off your nose to spite your face.”
I looked it up on Wikipedia:
Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face is an expression used to describe a needlessly self-destructive overreaction to a problem. (It) is a warning against acting out of pique, or against pursuing revenge in a way that would damage oneself more than the object of one’s anger.
OK, I am going to say it: Those readers who have canceled their subscriptions as a form of protest against Jeff Bezos are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They are hurting themselves by draining resources from one of the most important news organizations on the planet. They are making it even harder for reporters and editors to continue the tough reporting they have done on political corruption over the last decade.
Journalism — in all its forms — faces two existential crises. The first is the loss of a business model that once supported top-notch journalism, which is expensive. No one has an answer of who, in the years to come, will pay for good journalism in the public interest.
The second crisis involves the vicious attempts to decertify the press, to undercut its credibility, even to the point of branding it as the enemy of the people. Instead of standing firmly behind the reporters and editors who tell the truth, those who have canceled their subscriptions are abandoning them, leaving them over time with fewer resources to do their jobs.
My latest book, “Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing,” honors, among other brave examples, the stunning work the Post did in its reporting of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol:
With poles bearing blue Trump flags, the mob bashed through Capitol doors and windows, forcing their way past police officers unprepared for the onslaught. Lawmakers were evacuated shortly before an armed standoff at the House chamber’s entrance. The woman who was shot by a police officer was rushed to an ambulance, police said, and later died. Canisters of tear gas were fired across the rotunda’s white marble floor, and on the steps outside the building, rioters flew Confederate flags. “USA!’ chanted the would-be saboteurs of a 244-year-old democracy.”
That coverage would earn the Post a Pulitzer Prize.
My former student, Kelley Benham French, has just accepted a job as a narrative accountability editor at the Post. I met her when she was a high school journalist and watched her with pride as she grew into one of America’s most gifted story editors. As a teacher, a reader of news and a citizen, I want Kelley and her colleagues to have the most resources available to do the best job they can — in the public interest.
If you are not feeling well and you run out of medicine, what do you do? If you are smart, you refill your prescription. In the same spirit, please readers, change your mind. Renew your subscriptions.
Besides, you won’t look that good walking around without a nose.
