Resist the urge to cancel WaPo, LAT
WTF is wrong with people
Just don’t do it.
Yes, people are angry.
Mark Hamill tweeted to his 5.1 million followers on Friday, October 25, 2024: “Just canceled the newspaper that told us ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness.’” #BoycottWaPo
Seeing the cancellation notice he posted made me want to cry.
Yes, people feel a tradition has been broken.
The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the Jan. 6. attack on the U.S. Capital. The newsroom is forever associated with its coverage of Watergate.
But those were the news departments, not the opinion page.
Get over it.
Focus on the big picture.
This isn’t about billionaire owners
Jeff Bezos blocked The Washington Post presidential endorsement.
Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the L.A. Times presidential endorsement.
While the idea of billionaire owners crushing the will of their editorial boards is unsavory, it is what it is. Neither man would be impacted by cuts or losses at their major metro newspapers. They would simply be tax write-offs.
Watching thousands of people cancel their subscription helps no one. All it does is send hundreds of journalists to the unemployment line and further shrink coverage. This is why the L.A. Times Guild is urging people not to cancel.
Seeing Mariel Garza quit her role as editorials editor in L.A. makes me ill.
Readers and reporters need Garza now more than ever.
Robert Greene quit, too. He won a Pulitzer for his coverage of policing, bail reform, prisons and mental health that clearly examined the Los Angeles criminal justice system. Greene is also an expert on water and drought issues.
His publisher doesn’t care. But we should.
Yes, subscribers want to punch billionaires publishers in the wallet. It seems to be the only action that gets any attention these days. But, in the end, there are precious few newsrooms doing important work.
Great reporters and editors are essential to protecting our great nation.
Don’t let the the money dry up
I would ask angry subscribers to keep their subscriptions to WaPo and the L.A. Times and instead expand the number of newsrooms they support. Support local media outlets. It matters.
Now is the time to protect democracy.
And a free press is critical to our freedom.
Fact is, no one is making a decision about how to vote based on a newspaper endorsement. Not in 2024. Those days are long gone. Sad, but true.
News survives only if we fund it.
America needs watchdogs now more than ever.
As a former reporter at The Des Moines Register and lecturer at the annual Okoboji Writers Retreat in Iowa, Phoebe Wall Howard is part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.
First, telling people to “get over it” is not a good look, nor an effective strategy when trying to convince angry or heartbroken people to see your side.
Secondly, if wealthy owners of newspapers will kill an editorial endorsement that you yourself admit has limited impact, what assurance do we have that they won’t try to kill investigative work that *could* have an impact? None. The cancellations are a vote of no confidence in the newspaper’s future ability to speak truth to power. Perhaps they can earn our trust back.
I'm not canceling my subscription. But I understand why people are doing that because it seems to be the only way individuals can send a message to the newspapers.