Ask Fear & Greed: Why the uproar over newspapers endorsing candidates?

Listener Scott asks: I've been reading about the decision by the Washington Post not to endorse a candidate for the election. Do newspapers normally do this? Do we do it here? I haven't really noticed it in the past.

Join Sean Aylmer & Michael Thompson as they answer listener questions.

If you have your own question for Ask Fear & Greed, get in touch via our website, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook!

Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we take your
questions and do our best to answer them. I'm Michael Thompson,
and good afternoon, Sean Aylmer Hi, Michael, Sean. Today's question
is it's a bit different today. Today's question it comes
from Scott and he has sent it in via LinkedIn
and he says, I've been reading about the decision by

(00:25):
the Washington Post not to endorse a candidate for the
US election. Do newspapers normally do this? Do we do
it here? I haven't really noticed it much in the past.
It is a good question, Sean. I thought it was
a good question for you, considering you are well, you're
a big fan obviously of US politics. You have worked

(00:46):
in the US in for Australian media, but you've also
worked in Australian newspapers, so you are probably the most
qualified person I know to answer this question right. Well,
I've really said to us said you're happy. Broadly, newspapers
do come down on the side of someone. So if
you look at the Financial Review, the Australian, The Age,

(01:07):
the Sydney Morning Herald, the laed Advertiser, those organizations of the
West Australian they will tend to come down in an editorial,
often the weekend or a week before the election in
Australia and say this.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is who you should vote for. That is tradition. In
the US, it's exactly the same. They do tend to
come down. The conservative media comes on one side, the
liberal media comes on the other. So the bottom line
is yet that does tend to happen. But it's a
lot of fun because I used to run the Sydney
Morning Herald and at one point, about six months out
from the election, we decided that we probably knew which

(01:44):
side we would support, and our op ed op ed
writer came and said, you know how we're going to
support this person. Well, we've been writing all this other stuff,
so we're going to have to sort of change our
view a little bit over the next six months. And
so we then spent six months changing our view on
things so that when we actually supported the person that

(02:06):
we supported, it was appropriate and people couldn't say, hey, hey,
you know, you've changed your mind all of a sudden.
It's funny. My counterpart at the age got in all
sorts of trouble because he supported the other person at
the time, and not many people were happy about that,
and there was all sorts of internal dealings with the
board and things like that.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Can I ask you about that process, Sean, of how
you decided who you were going to support, because I
imagine it would be an assessment of various policies, the
projected kind of impact, kind of how long different parties
have been in power for. I imagine there's a whole
lot of things that go into it. It's not just ah,

(02:46):
I like the look of this guy.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
You're right, but there's one other factor which I'm almost
ashamed to admit it. Right, you want to pick the winner.
So if if you have got an editorial and there's
going to be a clear winner and you say vote
for the other person, and that's like in our instance
it was clear who was going to win the election,

(03:11):
it's sort of you don't really want to be on
the losing side. But broadly it is about policies and
you will find the Citney Morning Herald in the state election.
Last with the recent state election where Chris means one,
the Cinnemony Herald campaign ferociously around gaming advertising and so

(03:36):
rather than have a really strong view on which side
they had a really strong it had a really strong
view on particular policies. So you do get that a
little bit. But everyone comes down on one side or
the other. Always want to be on the winning side.
It should be on the policies and stuff like that.
But you also, I mean, you can imagine some of
the journalists, they're kind of they lean one way or

(03:59):
the other, and these rosist debates you have very funny Well.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Can I ask you then in that case, what you
make of what is happening in the US then, because
obviously with Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire who owned the
Washington Post, and it appears to have been a decision
that he made because he's also then pender and op
ed as to why he has decided to stop the

(04:24):
newspaper from endorsing a candidate, and he's basically said, it
is it is about independence, and it is about being impartial,
and we want to actually, we want readers to see
our newspaper as being an impartial kind of a conveyor
of news. And obviously the editorial team was not happy
about that. There are a number of senior resignations from there.

(04:47):
What do you think about this? Is it a move
that we might see happening here, this kind of push
to make the newspaper's more impartial or is it something
that could benefit Donald Trump, which is a lot of
the criticism of that move.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's not unprecedented like that has happened in Australian newspapers before.
They say we're not going to we're going to be independent.
I think it's sort of a soft way out because
mostly op ed pages, if you read the Wall Street
Journal op ed pages, they are totally different to the
news pages. They are extremely right wing and that's their opinion.

(05:22):
I like it when media outlets have an opinion, and
the op ed pages and the leaders are the places
for that. However, Jeff Bezil saying's the paper, he can
do what he wants with it, really and so you know,
I think it's a bit extreme to actually resign. You
can kind of get on your high horse and say
how dare you? But there'd be a bunch of people
within the Washington Post who would disagree with whatever the
decision was, Democrat, Republican, or you know, don't favor anyone.

(05:46):
So it's a healthy church. And I think I like
the idea that papers come down or media outlets come
down on one side or another, but they are influential.
What I think diference now to when I was running
newspapers other Taylor Swifts of the world, so ten years ago,

(06:06):
and prior to that, a newspaper editorial was really influential. Today,
Taylor Swifts as influential as any newspaper editorial would ever be,
particularly from millennials and younger And so in some ways,
that whole idea of getting Taylor Swift's endorsement and a
bunch of other celebrity endorsements, which certainly Carmla Harris has

(06:28):
done better. Mind you, Donald Trump got hul Cogan, So
credit where credits due.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
So there are big names on both sides, that's right.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think that endorsement in some ways replaces what newspapers
used to be able to do in terms of influence
at least.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
All right, I think, Scott, well, I hope we have
answered your question. Look, and it ended up just using
this for my own education. I find this whole thing fascinating,
and the fact that you actually say that they were,
that newspapers were influential in that because I wouldn't have
thought that too many people would change their vote necessarily
based on an editorial in the paper, but as you say,

(07:08):
it's probably also then it might be the six months
leading up to it and the editorials as well, and
the information that's conveyed through those as well, rather than
just that one editorial saying this is the side that
we're coming down on. So anyway, great question, Scott, and
great answer, Sean. Thank you, Michael, Thank you Scott, and
don't forget if you have your own question that you

(07:29):
would like us to answer, it can be as broad
as you like. I mean, obviously this one was pretty broad.
You can send it in via LinkedIn, as Scott did,
or you can head along to Facebook or Instagram or
go to Fear and Greed dot com dot au if
you like. I'm Michael Thompson and this is ask Fear
and Greed