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Speaker 1: Already, and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.

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Speaker 2: Oh, now it makes sense.

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Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday,

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Speaker 3: the twenty ninth of October. I'm Zara, I'm Sam. In

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Speaker 3: the last week, two major US newspapers have announced they

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Speaker 3: won't endorse a candidate for the US presidential election. It's

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Speaker 3: a huge departure from the way legacy media has traditionally

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Speaker 3: approached elections and has called into question the billionaire ownership

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Speaker 3: of the two papers and what it could mean for

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Speaker 3: editorial independence moving forward. In today's deep dive, we'll explain

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Speaker 3: what's happened at the Washington Post and the La Times

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Speaker 3: and the fallout since the first Sam.

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Speaker 1: What's making headlines.

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Speaker 2: Queensland's new Premier, David chrisp Fully has been sworn into

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Speaker 2: office after the lnp's victory at the state election over

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Speaker 2: the World weekend. The Liberal Nationals won fifty four percent

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Speaker 2: of votes, with forty six percent going to Labour. It's

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Speaker 2: the second time the LNP has formed government since it

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Speaker 2: became a single political party in two thousand and eight.

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Speaker 2: Chrysifily was formally named premier during a ceremony at Queensland's

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Speaker 2: Government House on Monday. After being sworn in, He said

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Speaker 2: the responsibility of being Premier is not something I take lightly.

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Speaker 2: Former Premier Stephen Miles is expected to continue on as

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Speaker 2: Labour leader. Premier Chrysopelely has vowed to pass adult crime

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Speaker 2: adult time laws by the end of the year.

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Speaker 3: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterrez has reiterated calls for

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Speaker 3: an immediate cease fire and the release of all hostages

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Speaker 3: after describing life in northern Gaza as untenable. The comments

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Speaker 3: by the UN chief follow Israeli air strikes believed to

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Speaker 3: have killed around seventy people in Gaza over the weekend.

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Speaker 3: Guterres said conflict in the region continues to be waged

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Speaker 3: with little regard for international care humanitarian law. Meanwhile, authorities

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Speaker 3: in Israel are investigating a suspected terror attack after a

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Speaker 3: truck rammed into a TELEVIV bus stoff, killing one person

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Speaker 3: and injuring forty others.

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Speaker 2: The opposition leader has criticized the Prime Minister overclaims he

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Speaker 2: accepted dozens of quantus upgrades when he was the Minister

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Speaker 2: and Shadow Minister for Transport. It comes after The Financial

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Speaker 2: Review published allegations claiming Anthony Albernzi directly liaised with ex

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Speaker 2: quantus CEO Alan Joyce to arrange the upgrades before he

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Speaker 2: became PM. Alberanzi said while MPs receive upgrades from time

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Speaker 2: to time, they must declare them. The PM claims all

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Speaker 2: of his upgrades have been declared as appropriate going back

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Speaker 2: a long period of time. Opposition leader Peter Dunton called

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Speaker 2: it a bit strange for Alberesi to be contacting the

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Speaker 2: CEO of an airline to arrange his travel.

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Speaker 3: And today's good news. For the first time Australia has

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Speaker 3: meddled at the Grand Prix of figure skating. Anastasia Gulla

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Speaker 3: Bev and Hector Geotopolis Moore won a history making bronze

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Speaker 3: at the International Skating Union World Cup event in Canada

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Speaker 3: this week. The pairs podium finish comes after they narrowly

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Speaker 3: missed out on qualifying for the international event last year.

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Speaker 2: So Zara, over the weekend, you and I were texting

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Speaker 2: each other back and forth. Yeah, it was nice to

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Speaker 2: chat over the news that the Washington Post and The

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Speaker 2: La Times, two of the biggest newspapers in America, announcing

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Speaker 2: they won't endorse a candidate in next week's presidential election

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Speaker 2: next week? Isn't that crazy?

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Speaker 1: Remarkable?

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Speaker 2: Eight days to go. I want to start this conversation

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Speaker 2: with the idea of endorsements. Yeah, what does that actually mean?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: So I do think that that's a good place to start,

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Speaker 3: because I actually wrote in our newsletter an introduction a

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Speaker 3: few weeks ago saying, I think it was when The

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Speaker 3: New York Times first came out with their endorsement, saying,

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Speaker 3: what do you the audience think of endorsements? And the

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Speaker 3: overwhelming feedback that I got from our newsletter audience was

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Speaker 3: that people didn't know that it was a thing for

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Speaker 3: newspapers to endorse candidates, and that they've actually never heard

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Speaker 3: of this. And so I think this is one of

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Speaker 3: those times where we need to kind of get outside

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Speaker 3: of our media bubble zone and really just explain the

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Speaker 3: lay of the land. So the reality is that it

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Speaker 3: is extremely commonplace, and I'd say it's fairly widespread that

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Speaker 3: a media company or a news outlet will endorse a

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Speaker 3: candidate or a party before an election. To give you

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Speaker 3: a sense of how long this has been a thing,

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Speaker 3: the New York Times first endorsed a candidate back in

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Speaker 3: eighteen sixty, so that was when they endorsed Abraham Lincoln.

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Speaker 3: So it's been quite a long time that this sort

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Speaker 3: of idea of getting behind a candidate has been a thing,

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Speaker 3: certainly in the US now that endorsement can take many forms.

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Speaker 3: It can look really different depending on who and what

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Speaker 3: that outlet is, but it's almost always written and prepared

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Speaker 3: by the opinion team of whatever outlet we're talking about.

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Speaker 3: And I do think that it's important to note that

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Speaker 3: at these big outlets, the opinion teams and the news

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Speaker 3: teams are very separate.

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Speaker 2: And by opinion teams, you don't mean the people writing

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Speaker 2: every day of their opinions. It's the people editing other

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Speaker 2: people's opinions.

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Speaker 3: Yes, so it's mostly like the editors who are running

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Speaker 3: those opinion columns, and they are coming together with some

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Speaker 3: sort of unanimous position either way. It's also not a

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Speaker 3: uniquely American idea, I think I should add here. So

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Speaker 3: in Australia you'll see most of legacy media getting behind

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Speaker 3: It's usually not a candidate, it's usually a party, just

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Speaker 3: because of the way our system works. I was looking

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Speaker 3: through what happened before the last federal election, the City

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Speaker 3: Morning Herald and the Age the Guardian and the Canberra Times.

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Speaker 3: They all got out and backed Labor, who obviously went

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Speaker 3: on to win, and Anthony Albernezi who is now.

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Speaker 1: Our Prime Minister.

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Speaker 3: Well News Corps, many many papers and the Financial Review

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Speaker 3: back to the Coalition, which was a course led by

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Speaker 3: Scott Morrison at the time. And I wanted to give

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Speaker 3: you a sense of before we go back into America,

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Speaker 3: what it's like to read an editorial endorsement from an

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Speaker 3: Australian news outlet. So I fished out some of those

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Speaker 3: endorsements from the last federal election.

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Speaker 1: I'll read you a bit of a line from the Age.

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Speaker 3: It said, and I'm quoting here, while we despair at

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Speaker 3: the lack of truth telling in this campaign, the AGE

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Speaker 3: believes a change of government is needed to begin restoring

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Speaker 3: integrity to federal politics and to finally face up to

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Speaker 3: the challenge of climate change.

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Speaker 2: So quite a strongly worded endorsement there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And I mean that's obviously only one side

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Speaker 3: that's in support of Labor. On the flip side, we

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Speaker 3: had the Australian Right. Mister Morrison, they're referring to Scott

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Speaker 3: Morrison has endured the worst a world can throw at

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Speaker 3: a national leader, and Australia has emerged stronger. Mister Albinizi

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Speaker 3: has not proven himself ready to assume the high office

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Speaker 3: he seeks.

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Speaker 2: Just before we keep going on this, when you said

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Speaker 2: that they're writing their endorsements, who's it signed off by?

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Speaker 3: I mean it varies on a paper by paper basis,

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Speaker 3: but it is usually the Age or the Washington Posts.

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Speaker 3: It's that the entirety of that unit is behind whatever

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Speaker 3: the call is.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So that's some helpful context to understand what endorsing

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Speaker 2: a candidate or a party looks like here in Australia.

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Speaker 2: The election that's obviously only eight days away. Is in

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Speaker 2: the US, give me a sense of what the endorsement

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Speaker 2: landscape has looked like there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I intimated this a bit before, but over

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Speaker 3: the course of the last few months, we've seen all

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Speaker 3: sorts of papers come out and endorse both Vice President

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Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. I'll quickly just

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Speaker 3: run through one of each, just to give you a

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Speaker 3: sense of what's out there. The big one for Harris

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Speaker 3: was the New York Times. They came out. If you

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Speaker 3: thought what the Age wrote was strongly worded, take this line,

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Speaker 3: they wrote, the only patriotic choice for president, and the

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Speaker 3: first line of that endorsement read, it's hard to imagine

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Speaker 3: a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the

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Speaker 3: United States than Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that was a little while back.

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Speaker 3: And then Donald Trump has been endorsed by The New

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Speaker 3: York Post, which is a Murdoch owned paper, who in

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Speaker 3: the last few days said that Donald Trump is the

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Speaker 3: clear choice for a better future. That editorial went on

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Speaker 3: to say, the burden is heavy on our shoulders this November,

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Speaker 3: but Trump and Harris want to take us down very

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Speaker 3: different roads, making the choice stark and simple but vital.

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Speaker 3: Donald Trump is the right choice.

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Speaker 2: This is such an interesting discussion to have, especially considering

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Speaker 2: the facts that both of those papers still need to

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Speaker 2: report the news in the lead up to this election,

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Speaker 2: and they've put that position out there and then kind

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Speaker 2: of go on doing the news.

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Speaker 3: Well, as I said before, there is this separation, or

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Speaker 3: at least, you know, I don't want to sound cymical,

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Speaker 3: there is a separation. And these outlets have done this,

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Speaker 3: as we said before, for hundreds of years. There is

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Speaker 3: the opinion side or the commentary side of a news outlet.

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Speaker 3: And then there is a news side. And as you'll

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Speaker 3: see with what we get into here, there's never really

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Speaker 3: been much issue of both sides reporting on the other.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it's not a new thing.

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Speaker 2: And that's what makes this situation so interesting is you

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Speaker 2: have two major papers who are bucked the trend and

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Speaker 2: they're not going to endorse the candidate. We're talking about

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Speaker 2: the La Times and the Washington Post. Let's start with

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Speaker 2: the La Times. Where did that decision come from?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, that's the golden question, but I guess

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Speaker 3: I'll just walk you through what happened, at least is

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Speaker 3: we know it. So the news first broke that the

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Speaker 3: La Times wouldn't be endorsing either Harris or Trump sometime

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Speaker 3: last week, and what's emerged since that time, and we're

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Speaker 3: just going off what we understand based on what journalists

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Speaker 3: who were involved in.

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Speaker 1: The process have said publicly.

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Speaker 3: But what we understand from that is that the paper's

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Speaker 3: editorial board was preparing to endorse Kamala Harris when the

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Speaker 3: newspaper's owner intervened and blocked that decision. I do think

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Speaker 3: that a bit of context is useful here. So the

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Speaker 3: La Times is the biggest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country,

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Speaker 3: and I believe it's the third largest paper all across

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Speaker 3: the country.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: It was bought by billionaire Patrick Sunchiong in twenty eighteen

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Speaker 3: and it's endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since

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Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. Another piece of information I think

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Speaker 3: is important here is that Kamala Harris is from California,

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Speaker 3: and there is a lot to say about a Californian

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Speaker 3: based paper not backing the California candidate. So now back

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Speaker 3: to what has happened as we understand it over the

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Speaker 3: past few days. Shortly after news broke that The La

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Speaker 3: Times wouldn't be endorsing a candidate, there was kind of

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Speaker 3: a string of resignations. One of those was the La

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Speaker 3: Times as editorials editor that is a mouthful Mariol Gaza,

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Speaker 3: who resigned quite publicly and then did a very long

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Speaker 3: interview afterwards.

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Speaker 1: She told the Columbia.

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Speaker 3: Journalism Review that I am resigning because I want to

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Speaker 3: make clear that I'm not okay with us being silent

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Speaker 3: in dangerous times. Honest people need to stand up. This

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Speaker 3: is how I'm standing up. As the fallout continued and

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Speaker 3: more staff resigned and this story kind of took on

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Speaker 3: a life of its own. Owner Patrick Sunchiong then kind

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Speaker 3: of had to wait in and he tweeted his position,

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Speaker 3: saying essentially that he had asked the board to provide

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Speaker 3: what he called factual analysis on the positive and negative

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Speaker 3: policies of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and he

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Speaker 3: wanted those two things to be displayed side by side.

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Speaker 3: He said that the board didn't do that, and thus

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Speaker 3: they chose to remain silent.

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Speaker 2: I just want to go back to a point you

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Speaker 2: just mentioned. Let's really think about this. We have an

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Speaker 2: editorials editor who I can only imagine how many years

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Speaker 2: they've had to put in to get to a position

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Speaker 2: of seniority like that out of paper like the La

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Speaker 2: Times resigning over a decision like this. That wasn't the

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Speaker 2: only paper that had this issue. Let's talk about the

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Speaker 2: Washington Post, and then I do want to talk about

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Speaker 2: why this matters so much.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the similarities between these two stories are

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Speaker 3: almost eerie in nature. But over the weekend, or rather

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Speaker 3: Friday local time in the US, the Washington Post announced

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Speaker 3: it won't be endorsing a candidate. That's for the first

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Speaker 3: time in thirty six years. And it wasn't just that

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Speaker 3: they weren't endorsing candidate in this election cycle. The announcement

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Speaker 3: also included the fact that they will never again endorse

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Speaker 3: a presidential characidate.

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Speaker 2: So that's a permanent move.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And so there there was kind of this getting

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Speaker 3: ahead of the story. So we had a full column

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Speaker 3: published by the papers publisher and CEO.

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Speaker 1: His name is will Lewis.

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Speaker 3: He wrote that this is a statement in support of

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Speaker 3: our reader's ability to make up their own minds on

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Speaker 3: this the most consequential of American decisions. He did concede

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Speaker 3: in that column, and I'll quote here this will be

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Speaker 3: read in a range of ways, including a tacit endorsement

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Speaker 3: of one candidate or a condemnation of another, or as

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Speaker 3: an abdication of responsibility. Within hours of that announcement, similar

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Speaker 3: to what happened at the La Times, the Post's editor

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Speaker 3: at large resigned and there were a number of op

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Speaker 3: eds published, even in the Washington Post itself to that

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Speaker 3: point where we're talking about before slamming the decision and

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Speaker 3: saying that, you know, it was just catastrophic. The editor

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Speaker 3: at large, Robert Kagan, he then did the rounds in

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Speaker 3: the media, and he suggested that the change in policy

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Speaker 3: and the decision not to back a candidate was, as

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Speaker 3: I said, like with the Times, thanks to The Washington

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Speaker 3: Post's billionaire owner. Now, if you're not across this, the

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Speaker 3: Washington Post was bought by Amazon founder billionaire Jeff Bezos

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Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen. I think a lot of our listeners

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Speaker 3: would be very familiar with him and would be able

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Speaker 3: to identify him, but perhaps not as many people know

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Speaker 3: that he owns one of the biggest papers in the

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Speaker 3: Northern hemisphere. So it's understood that The Washington Post was

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Speaker 3: planning to endorse Kamala Harris and that Bezos intervened to

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Speaker 3: make sure that didn't happen. Here is Kagan talking about

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Speaker 3: that decision in an interview with CNN over the weekend.

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Speaker 4: Well, it was a pretty easy decision. This is obviously

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Speaker 4: an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald

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Speaker 4: Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory. Trump has

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Speaker 4: threatened to go after Bezos's business. Besos runs one of

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Speaker 4: the largest companies in America. They have tremendously intricate relations

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Speaker 4: with federal government. They depend on the federal government and

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Speaker 4: Trump has made it clear that he will attack media

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Speaker 4: organizations that are critical of him.

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Speaker 2: That's a pretty remarkable claim for somebody to make. And

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Speaker 2: it is incredible to see an East coast and a

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Speaker 2: West coast situation playing out almost at the same time,

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Speaker 2: both editorial boards wanting to endorse a candidate, both.

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Speaker 1: The same candidate. Well, it should be said, right.

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Speaker 2: That's a good point, and both billion our owners stepping

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Speaker 2: in to stop that. Do you think we're seeing the

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Speaker 2: death of the newspaper endorsement then.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think that there's two parts to it.

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Speaker 3: I think that the influence of mainstream kind of centralized

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Speaker 3: news opinion style information was already diminishing, and I think

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Speaker 3: that there was already this movement away from wanting to

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Speaker 3: do this sort of thing. But I think that's now

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Speaker 3: tangled up in this idea of who should own the

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Speaker 3: media to billionaires do with their power. So I think

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Speaker 3: the natural kind of trend towards perhaps seeing fewer and

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Speaker 3: fewer papers endorsing candidates is now really mixed into a

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Speaker 3: bigger discussion about what it means and who should have

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Speaker 3: the power in these sorts of decisions.

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Speaker 2: Take me inside the mind of somebody who's just resigned

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Speaker 2: from their jobs, they might have been there. I mean,

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Speaker 2: that's not you. You and I we're still friends, Adam goodbye.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think it matters so much to them

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Speaker 2: that their paper endorses a candidate.

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Speaker 1: It all just comes down to editorial independence.

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Speaker 2: Right, So it's not the endorsement potentially itself as a function,

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Speaker 2: but it's more like, how much influence does this spilling

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Speaker 2: their owner have overts in the paper.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think it's one or the other.

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Speaker 3: I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it's that

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Speaker 3: a lot of Americans see this, as we said before,

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Speaker 3: as a deeply consequential election either way, that whoever wins

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Speaker 3: will forever change the nation and the world. And I

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Speaker 3: think that for someone who has pursued their entire career

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Speaker 3: in the media industry or in journalism to have a

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Speaker 3: sort of intervention that comes in over the top and

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Speaker 3: stops them from executing what they believe is their role

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Speaker 3: or their kind of job in this space, I imagine

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Speaker 3: that it would be an incredibly difficult thing to do,

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Speaker 3: especially when the stakes are so high.

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Speaker 2: Last question from me, Zara. You own a media company.

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Speaker 2: Why has the daily Odds not endorsed candidate. We've been

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Speaker 2: around for a couple of election cycles. Now what was

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Speaker 2: that decision about.

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Speaker 3: I mean, Sam, it's always been our belief that we

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Speaker 3: should be telling people how to think, not what to think.

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Speaker 3: And that's, for example, why we don't do opinion. That's

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Speaker 3: why you won't read commentary in our newsletters or on

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Speaker 3: our Instagram or here on our podcast. We provide analysis

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Speaker 3: and we provide information, but we want audiences to be

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Speaker 3: able to go and make up their own minds. And

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Speaker 3: so when I think back to the last federal election

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Speaker 3: and the impact that we had there, we partnered, for example,

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Speaker 3: with the Australian Electoral Commission and we tried to push

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Speaker 3: people to enroll to vote.

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Speaker 1: In my mind, that is.

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Speaker 3: A far more useful tool and a far more productive

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Speaker 3: thing to do than telling people which way to vote

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Speaker 3: one way or the other, because I want people to

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Speaker 3: have the facts and the knowledge and the foundation to

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Speaker 3: be able to make those decisions and not just resort

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Speaker 3: to a few people sitting in a newsroom in Sydney

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Speaker 3: telling you what to think. Everyone has very different lived experiences.

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Speaker 3: Everyone comes to those decisions on a personal level, and

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Speaker 3: to be honest, I think that this should mark the

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Speaker 3: end of these sorts of endorsements. I don't think that

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Speaker 3: they're productive. But that's just my personal view, and you know,

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Speaker 3: I know there are a lot of people who would

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Speaker 3: disagree with me there.

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Speaker 2: And it's interesting that this conversation has been almost hijacked

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Speaker 2: now by ownership, as you said, yeah, rather than the it's.

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Speaker 3: Two very big issues, you know, and not to this

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Speaker 3: is a whole nother podcast. But then we have Elon

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Speaker 3: Musk who also owns arguably one of the biggest channels

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Speaker 3: of information dissemination in the world, and so we now

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Speaker 3: have to understand what a landscape of billionaires owning information

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Speaker 3: looks and feels like, and what we're okay to accept

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Speaker 3: and what we're not okay to accept.

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Speaker 2: Understanding how the media works, who owns it, and why

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Speaker 2: it's there has never been more important for Americans, but

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Speaker 2: I dare say probably for all of us across the world. Zara,

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Speaker 2: thank you for that, and thank you for joining us

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Speaker 2: on the Daily Os this morning. If you do want

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Speaker 2: to support independent media, that's a nice segue there. You

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Speaker 2: can sign up to our newsletter. I'll throw a link

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Speaker 2: in the comments. That's algorithm free news to your inbox

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Speaker 2: every day. We'll be back again with another episode of

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Speaker 2: the Daily Ods tomorrow. Until then, have a good one.

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Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 2: bunjelung Caalcutin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily os acknowledges

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Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 2: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 2: Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 2: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.