When Lord WaPo didn't give 'the sign'

Responding to the big blowback from many Washington Post readers for the paper not endorsing anyone (read: Kamala Harris) as its candidate of choice to hold Oval Office, the bald man who owns the newspaper has put out a bold reply. Reading Jeff Bezos' opinion piece in WaPo, we, sitting here in Independent Decision-Making India, can't but feel amused and puzzled - and in total agreement with his opinion that '[w]hat presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias'. His wish that 'we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it', strikes us as being obvious. As the whole brouhaha among WaPo readers shows, though, that's not the case in America.

American newspaper consumers are quite childlike in this respect - they want hand-holding and to know what their paper likes and dislikes. Presidential endorsement is like a guardian approving an ice-cream brand. But as Bezos puts it, this is prime territory for trust deficit, like a designated umpire supporting one of the two contesting cricket teams. Such a mindset exposes the readers' crypto Judeo-Christian underpinnings, no matter how much of a liberal Democrat one may be: 'The Exalted One must tell us what to do!' And woe be upon Lord WaPo if it proclaims the wrong commandment. Or, worse, no commandment at all.