While much of the mainstream media are playing defense for Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign, a number of prominent newspapers are refusing to endorse the Democratic candidate. A spokeswoman for USA Today confirmed on Monday that the widely-read paper would not be endorsing Harris for president. “Why are we doing this?” spokeswoman Lark-Marie Antón asked in a statement. She explained, “Because we believe America’s future is decided locally — one race at a time. And with more than 200 publications across the nation, our public service is to provide readers with the facts that matter and the trusted information they need to make informed decisions.”

Other influential newspapers have done the same. William Lewis, publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, announced last week that the third-largest newspaper in the U.S. would not be endorsing Harris, and would, in fact, not be endorsing any presidential candidates in the future. “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis wrote.

He continued, “Our job at The Washington Post is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.” He added, “Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be.”

Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon and owner of the Post, subsequently reasoned in a Monday morning op-ed that newspapers “must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased.”

He continued, “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence.” Bezos concluded, “By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did…”

The Los Angeles Times, in Harris’s home state of California, has also declined to endorse the Democratic presidential candidate. While the paper’s editorial board called this year’s election “the most consequential election in a generation,” the Los Angeles Times did not offer an endorsement in the presidential race, only in statewide and local races. Semafor reported last week that Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the paper’s owner, barred the paper’s editorial board from endorsing a presidential candidate.

Likewise, the San Francisco Examiner, a paper with a long history of supporting the Democratic Party, also has not endorsed Harris. In its 2024 election guide, the paper said that it “has endeavored to be a resource to our community — to cover the political season through a lens of impartiality, without fear or favor. To that end, in the pages of this special Election Guide edition, voters will not find endorsements, but instead an impartial look at the candidates and issues.”

The Tampa Bay Times, which endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and now-incumbent president Joe Biden in 2020, also announced that it would not be endorsing a presidential candidate this year and “never planned to.” The editorial board wrote, “We cannot think of a single reader who has told the Editorial Board over the past election cycle that they needed our help deciding on how to vote for president. Not one.” The Florida paper’s editors continued, “Not everyone thinks that a newspaper’s editorial board should make political recommendations. Some have stopped doing them entirely. Others have scaled back, just like the Times Editorial Board.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Melissa Mackenzie, an author and the publisher of The American Spectator, explained, “The newspaper owners don’t like Kamala. Maybe it’s her refusal to sit down with their editorial board. Maybe it’s her policies. But ultimately the endorsement, or lack thereof, doesn’t matter.” She continued, “Every piece in these publications is slanted for Kamala Harris and is equivalent to unreported campaign contributions. All their hard work to make her seem intelligent and a leader and it’s gained little.” Mackenzie added, “Endorsements really shouldn’t happen anyway and only matter to the hard lefties who continue to read, and that’s a diminishing number of people.”

Harris herself commented on the growing number of newspapers refusing to back her for president, during a Tuesday morning interview. She said that “it’s disappointing, no doubt,” not to be endorsed, but claimed that “billionaires” running major newspapers were secretly allied with her opponent, former President Donald Trump, although most of the papers which have refused to endorse Harris have lengthy histories of endorsing Democratic candidates.

Currently, Americans’ trust in mainstream media outlets stands at an all-time low, due in no small part to the perceived and real political bias of those outlets. Americans, especially youth, have increasingly been turning to independent, alternative, and social media instead of mainstream outlets. For example, both Harris and Trump have made several podcast appearances over the past months, with Trump’s three-hour interview on the “Joe Rogan Experience” having scored over 40 million views since being published late Friday.