My Dad, being a journalist, always got the paper, and when we were stateside and home in DC, that meant the Post. Overseas, it'd be a carefully selected assortment of local papers, plus the International Herald Tribune, which was, at the time, a joint venture between the Post and the New York Times.
When my friend with a paper route went on vacation, I'd fill in for him delivering the paper, back when a Post arrived on the doorstep of every other house. I'd trundle about in the dark of the morning, pulling a cart full of newsprint, grateful that I wasn't going to be doing this every day.
The arrival of the morning paper has remained a part of my life, and it's been a welcome respite from the chattering distraction of online media. It's a dying thing, fading away like so much of twentieth century culture, its place usurped by the cuckoo hullabaloo that passes for news on tha socialz.
The Post's recent decision not to endorse a candidate for the first time since Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were contending has caused an avalanche of subscription cancellations. My social feeds are full of outraged progressive friends publicly declaring their disgust, which is their right, even if it's a wee bit on the nose. It's also the tiniest bit ironic.
I mean, what are progressives going to read now? The New York Times? I mean, the Times endorsed Harris, straight up. But Progressives loathe the Times, because the Times is...I don't know...too DavidBrooksy. The Times is, without question, less progressive than the Post, a distinction that has deepened in the years of the Post's ownership by The Jeff. In fact, under Bezos, the Post has become notably more intersectional, as a younger leaner newsroom focuses on all of The Issues. There are times where more-conservative-I will roll my eyes at yet another representation article or thinkpiece centering the margins, not so much because that's offensive, but because it can get a tick monomaniacal.
This is the paper y'all are cancelling? Do the substantive coverage and the clearly progressive slant of the editorial board not matter? Do you think that a newspaper editorial board endorsement in 2024 is changing a single vote? That both of the Trumpists who still read the Post will be, oh, golly, I'd not factored the Post endorsement into the equation? Of course it's an exercise in capitalism realpolitik by the corporate master of the Post, for whom AWS is a waaaaay more lucrative venture. Of course Trump is a catastrophic mistake, and a marker of the perilous decay of the Republic. And sure, it's hard being so pointedly reminded that Democracy Dies in Darkness is a nice slogan, so long as it doesn't threaten the profit margins of our All-Powerful Oligarchs.
But even as it chafes under the leash of The Jeff, the Post still tries for journalistic integrity, still attempts to shine a light that isn't partisan, but seeks that elusive objectivity so necessary for the functioning of liberal democracy. There's value there, one that shouldn't be cast aside lightly or impulsively.
I think back to my father, the journalist. Dad was also a lifelong Republican. The sort of Republican who, back when he was young, worked for the party by standing on the street corners in Queens with a bullhorn. Dad would swear, up and down, that the best president of the 20th Century was...um...Richard Milhous Nixon. The EPA! Got us out of Vietnam! Rapprochement with China! It was a familiar refrain, and not exactly a thing we ever agreed upon.
But Dad still subscribed to the Post.
If a Nixon supporter could still subscribe to the Post, well, yeah.
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