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Washington Postwhere “democracy dies in darkness,” is not in the running for the 2024 presidential endorsement. For the first time since the 1988 election, the paper’s editorial board will not issue an endorsement for the president. Editor-CEO Will Lewis announced the move to readers on Friday as “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

Not surprisingly, there seems to be (much) more to this story, which comes days after Los Angeles. Times announced a similar move at the behest of its billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, prompting the publication’s editorial editor and two members of its editorial board to resign.

A billionaire owner was behind it Posthis disapproval, too. Behold Postreport about himself:

An endorsement of Harris had been drafted by Post editorial page staff, but they have not yet been published, according to two sources briefed on the sequence of events who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The decision not to publish was made by The Postits owner – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – according to the same sources.

“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a victim. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Postits owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners),” ex Post Executive Editor Martin Baron, who ran the paper while Trump was president, said in a text message to The Post. “History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness in an institution renowned for courage.”

NPR reports that editorial page editor, David Shipley, broke the news internally at a “tense meeting” shortly before Lewis made his announcement:

Shipley approved an editorial endorsement for Harris that was drafted earlier this month, according to three people with direct knowledge. He told colleagues that the decision to endorse is being reviewed by the paper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos. This is the owner’s prerogative and is a common practice. On Friday, Shipley said he told other leaders of Thursday’s editorial board that management had decided there would be no endorsement, although Shipley had known about the decision for some time. He added that he “owns” this result. The reason he gave was to create an “independent space” where the paper doesn’t tell people who to vote for.

Here’s Bezos’ last tweet, sent after Trump was nearly assassinated in July:

Lewis’ stated rationale was met with skepticism by others in the business:

Current staff from Post also express alarm and/or outrage at the move:

Editor-in-chief Robert Kagan resigned:

The PostHis union says it is “deeply concerned”:

The Columbia Journalism Review rEPORTS that the PostHarris’s claim had been in the works for several weeks:

Over a period of several weeks, a Post the staff told me, two Post Board members Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg had been working on drafts of a Harris endorsement. (None were contacted for this article.) “Normally, we would have had a meeting, gone over a draft, made suggestions, edited,” the staffer told me. Editorial writers started feeling angry a few weeks ago, according to staff; the process has crashed. About a week ago, editorial page editor David Shipley told the editorial board that approval was on track, adding that “this is obviously something our owner is interested in.”

“We thought we were thinking about the language — not whether there would be an endorsement,” he said Post said the employee. so Postboth the news and opinion departments were stunned Friday after Shipley told the editorial board at a meeting that he would not take a position after all.