Hearts & Minds: Post early for election, Will

Two US newspapers make a point of not endorsing a Presidential candidate and an almighty row ensues. Subscribers cancel their orders; current staffers resign; and renowned ex-journalists voice opposition. Both titles, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, find themselves in trouble.

Of the two, the Post’s crisis is the more serious. It’s got a famous history of exposing political corruption, Watergate and the demise of President Nixon was its story, its stance has long been pro-Democrat, and it’s run highly critical editorials of actions by Donald Trump.

It goes deeper: the paper’s chief executive is Will Lewis, a Brit, a journalist star in his own country but someone who in the eyes of the Post’s newsroom, committed the sin of paying a source for a news story (it was MPs’ expenses and the British public had a right to know how much MPs were claiming). Lewis is regarded as close to the Post’s proprietor, Jeff Bezos and was parachuted in to make changes at what was a declining news organisation.

American journalists seem united around one theme: how important American journalist are. So, the decision to sit on the fence has unleashed a tirade of opprobrium, much of it personal, against Lewis and Bezos. The fact there is nothing that says a newspaper must back one side or the other is forgotten. There are good reasons for staying neutral – in the UK in recent elections several leading newspapers have adopted that position. You don’t tell people how to vote, so why should they? Supporting the winner also makes it difficult for them to subsequently do their job of scrutinising the administration.

Indeed, the Post itself has in the past refused to endorse. The comms mistake was to leave it so late, to get so close to the ballot and then announce. It was assumed, and that assumption had been allowed to harden, the paper was going for Kamala Harris. An editorial to that effect was in the final stages of readiness.

The comms lesson here is that if you know you’re going to make a move that is likely to heap negative attention on the brand, do the groundwork. Soften the blow. Even if you haven’t made up your mind, still signal. Turn the unexpected to the expected.

Bezos, whose business interests extend across government, may have been influenced by fear of retribution from a triumphant Trump. That a few of his executives fleetingly met Trump on the day the Post declared its stance, only fuelled the fire. None of that would have mattered so much if they’d prepared the ground in advance.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.