Portrait of Jeff Bezos (cc) 2017 by thierry ehrmann.
If The Washington Post’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, ever decides he wants to take journalism seriously again, then he might take a look at a handful of large regional papers that have charted a route to sustainability against the strong headwinds that continue to buffet the news business.
Perhaps the most important difference between these papers and the Post — and the hundreds of other shrinking media outlets owned by corporate chains and hedge funds — is that they are rooted in the communities they cover. Whether owned by wealthy people or run by nonprofits, they place service to their city and region above extracting the last smidgen of revenue they can squeeze out.
Although I could add a few to this list, I am mentioning five large regional newspapers as examples of how it’s possible to succeed despite the long-term decline in the economics of journalism.
I’ve written about Jeff Bezos’ defenestration of The Washington Post multiple times over the past two-plus years, and I’m not going to rehash it in any great detail today.
Suffice to say that today’s gutting of the Post, reported here by NPR’s David Folkenflik, is just the latest outrage that began when Bezos refused to do anything after his hand-chosen publisher, Will Lewis, turned out to be a terrible choice. Lewis was enmeshed in ethics scandals stemming from his time as a Murdoch lieutenant in the U.K., but Bezos remained silent. Later came the most visible sign that Bezos had turned — his decision to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election.
Retired Post executive editor Marty Baron has a withering essay up on Facebook that you should read in full. After acknowledging the very real challenges facing the Post, Baron writes:
The Post’s challenges … were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top — from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.
The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I was at the Post interviewing Baron and others for my book “The Return of the Moguls.” In those days the Post was profitable and growing, and Bezos had developed a reputation for standing up to Donald Trump’s threats and bullying. Bezos has since transformed into a Trump toady, spending $75 million to make that ridiculous Melania Trump biopic for — for what? I guess to get the White House on board with his ambitions for the Blue Origin rocket company that he owns.
I can’t imagine why Bezos would want to be associated with what the Post has become — what he’s turned it into. He certainly shows no sign of interest in it. From 2013-23, he was a model owner. But people change. Bezos has changed, much for the worse. If there’s any chance that he might donate it to a nonprofit foundation, as the late billionaire Gerry Lenfest did with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2016, I hope he’ll do it sooner rather than later.
The Star Tribune’s headquarters. Photo (cc) 2019 by Tony Webster.
The Minnesota Star Tribune, which is already getting a lot of attention for its outstanding coverage of ICE’s violent and indiscriminate rampage through Minneapolis and St. Paul, has unveiled some ideas that ought to be considered by every large regional newspaper in the country.
Granted, newspapers owned by corporations and hedge funds aren’t likely to emulate these common-sense ideas, even though they might boost revenue in the long run. But there are still some independent dailies such as The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as a few high-quality chains such as Hearst and Advance, that could learn from the Star Tribune.
► An end to the paywall for live blogs covering breaking news, which will ensure that “its public service journalism is accessible to all.” The Strib’s free live-blog coverage of the ICE occupation has been essential. Moreover, Minnesota residents whose first exposure to the paper’s journalism was through the live blog might be enticed into buying a subscription.
► Unlimited gift links so that subscribers can share articles with friends. The press release doesn’t specify whether those links will be shareable on social media as well, but that is the standard practice at most papers that offer gift links. This is another forward-looking move that will give non-readers a chance to sample the Strib’s coverage and decide whether they want to become paying customers. The Globe, to cite one contrary example, lets you email a gift link to friends, but it’s kludgy and it doesn’t work on social. The Strib’s approach sounds like it will be cleaner and more intuitive.
► A family-plan digital subscription with up to four unique log-ins, offered at a slightly higher price than an individual subscription. The New York Times does this, but I’m not aware of other papers that do it.
► A nonprofit fund that can accept tax-deductible donations to support the Star Tribune’s journalism. (The Local News Fund was started in 2024, but it was re-announced Friday.) Some might object to this; the Strib, like the Globe, is a for-profit owned by a billionaire. But those billionaires have invested a considerable amount of resources into their papers, which are marginally profitable at best. If you accept the proposition that even a billionaire owner shouldn’t be expected to run their paper at a loss, then this is a good way to support high-quality regional news coverage.
The Washington Post’s plan to bring in a plethora of outside opinion writers, edited by artificial intelligence, is being widely mocked, as it should be. But the idea is not new — at least the non-AI part.
A decade ago, the Post started publishing something called PostEverything, which the paper called “a digital daily magazine for voices from around the world.” Here’s how the 2014 rollout described it:
In PostEverything, outsiders will entertain and inform readers with fresh takes, personal essays, news analyses, and other innovative ways to tell the stories everyone is talking about — and the ones they haven’t yet heard.
PostEverything went PostNothing sometime in 2022, but now it’s back. According to Benjamin Mullin of The New York Times (gift link), the revived feature, known internally as Ripple, will comprise opinion writing from other newspapers, independent writers on Substack and, eventually, nonprofessional writers. Ripple will be digital-only and will be offered outside the Post’s paywall.
What’s hilarious is that Mullin contacted several of the partners the Post is considering, such as The Salt Lake Tribune and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and was told they’re not interested. Another potential partner was identified as Jennifer Rubin, who quit the Post over owner Jeff Bezos’ meddling and started her own publication called The Contrarian. Mullin writes: “When told that she had been under consideration at all, Ms. Rubin burst out in laughter. ‘Did they read my public resignation letter?’ she said.”
We now know more about the AI-generated slop that was published in the Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
According to Jason Koebler of 404 Media, the 64-page summer guide called “Heat Index” was produced by King Features, part of the Hearst chain. As Koebler reported earlier, a freelancer named Marco Buscaglia used AI to write a guide to summer books. He admitted that he did not check his work, and it turned out that most of the books don’t exist.
Marina Dunbar reports in The Guardian that other articles in “Heat Index” may also contain AI hallucinations, including one on food and another on gardening. The Sun-Times addressed the fiasco on Tuesday but put its statement behind the paper’s paywall. That’s unacceptable, so here’s a link where you can find it. The paper says in part:
Our partner confirmed that a freelancer used an AI agent to write the article. This should be a learning moment for all of journalism that our work is valued because of the relationship our very real, human reporters and editors have with our audiences.
The Sun-Times statement also says that subscribers won’t be charged, that “Heat Index” is being removed from its e-paper version, and that various steps are being taken to improve transparency.
The Chicago Sun-Times News Guild issued a statement as well:
The Sun-Times Guild is aware of the third-party “summer guide” content in the Sunday, May 18 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. This was a syndicated section produced externally without the knowledge of the members of our newsroom.
We take great pride in the union-produced journalism that goes into the respected pages of our newspaper and on our website. We’re deeply disturbed that AI-generated content was printed alongside our work. The fact that it was sixty-plus pages of this “content” is very concerning — primarily for our relationship with our audience but also for our union’s jurisdiction.
Our members go to great lengths to build trust with our sources and communities and are horrified by this slop syndication. Our readers signed up for work that has been vigorously reported and fact-checked, and we hate the idea that our own paper could spread computer- or third-party-generated misinformation. We call on Chicago Public Media management to do everything it can to prevent repeating this disaster in the future.
It’s interesting that most of the focus has been on the Sun-Times rather than the Inquirer, even though “Heat Index” appeared in the Inquirer last Thursday, three days before the Sun-Times, according to Herb Scribner of The Washington Post (gift link). Axios reported that the Inquirer’s publisher and CEO, Lisa Hughes, called the screw-up “a violation of our own internal policies and a serious breach.” Mostly, though, the focus has been on Chicago, where the mistake was first caught.
It’s worth noting, too, that the Sun-Times and the Inquirer are both owned by mission-oriented nonprofits — the Sun-Times by Chicago Public Media and the Inquirer by the Lenfest Institute. It shows that anyone can get caught up in this. And I don’t really blame editors at either paper for not checking, since “Heat Index” is outside content produced by a respected media organization.
Speaking of Hearst, we have not yet heard from them as to how this was allowed to happen. Because even if it was acceptable for the Sun-Times and the Inquirer not to edit the supplement, it certainly should have been thoroughly edited by King Features before it was sent out to client newspapers.
This is a story about the hazards of AI, but, even more, it’s a story about human failure.
Well, this is embarrassing. The Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer have been caught running an AI-generated guide to summer books that don’t exist. I saw some hilarious posts about it this morning on Bluesky, but I wanted to wait until there was news about what had happened.
Now we know. Jason Koebler reports for the tech site 404 Media that the feature was written (or, rather, not written) by someone named Marco Buscaglia as part of a 64-page summer guide. The section was not specific to the Sun-Times or the Inquirer but, rather, was intended for multiple client newspapers. “It’s supposed to be generic and national,” Buscaglia told Koebler. “We never get a list of where things ran.”
Buscaglia pleads guilty to using AI, too, saying, “I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can’t believe I missed it because it’s so obvious. No excuses. On me 100% and I’m completely embarrassed.”
The Chicago Sun-Times, a tabloid, merged several years ago with Chicago Public Media, creating a nonprofit hybrid that could compete with the larger Chicago Tribune, which has labored under cuts imposed by its hedge-fund owner, Alden Global Media.
The merger hasn’t gone particular well, though. In March, the Sun-Times reported that it would lose 20% of its staff under buyouts imposed by Chicago Public Media, which is dealing with its own economic woes. According to an article by Sun-Times reporter David Roeder, the cuts were aimed at eliminating 23 positions in a newsroom of 107.
As for the AI fiasco, the Sun-Times said on Bluesky: “We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously.”
If it wasn’t approved by the newsroom, that suggests it was an advertising supplement.
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis. 2019 public domain photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The ongoing implosion of The Washington Post is unfolding at a moment when we’ve never been more in need of tough, independent journalism. The latest, as Sara Fischer reports for Axios, is that Phil Rucker is leaving as the Post’s national editor in order to become senior vice president of editorial strategy and news at CNN.
It seems that anyone who can leave the Post is doing so now that billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has thrown in with Donald Trump. I don’t blame people for staying; after all, jobs in journalism are hard to come by, and there’s still reason to hope the paper’s news reporters will be allowed to do good work. Still, Bezos has done incalculable harm over the past year following a decade of model ownership; I wrote about the first years of his reign in my 2018 book, “The Return of The Moguls.” What’s happening now is depressing.
Before I get back to the Post, a word about CNN, about which there is reason to worry and reason to be hopeful. On the one hand, you have to be concerned about independent media reporter Oliver Darcy’s story Tuesday evening that chief executive Mark Thompson had told his staff before the inauguration that he wanted them not to dwell on the past. Darcy writes:
The next day, the network executed as directed…. CNN’s journalists entirely avoided pointing out during special inauguration coverage various inconvenient truths, such as the fact Trump is the first convicted felon to take office or that he was impeached for his role in inciting an insurrection on the very place he took his second oath. It was a glaring omission, but not one by accident.
On the other hand, Thompson is the guy who, in his previous job, revived The New York Times’ fortunes, transforming the newspaper into a growing, profitable digital powerhouse not just on the strength of its journalism but through ancillary products such as games, consumer advice and food. And he somehow convinced an outstanding news leader like Rucker that CNN is a better place to be right now than The Washington Post.
About which: As I was getting ready to write this item, the Post’s Karla Adam reported (gift link) that Rupert Murdoch’s British publishing empire had settled an invasion-of-privacy suit brought by Prince Harry for more than $10 million and an apology. Adam writes:
As part of the deal, Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) issued a formal apology, which was read out in court by Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne, conceding “unlawful activities” carried out by private investigators working for Murdoch’s newspapers, including “phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information.”
Scan down further into the story and you’ll come across this:
An executive summary of the claimants’ arguments, shared with The Washington Post before the settlement, indicated that Harry and [Labour Party politician Tom] Watson’s legal teams planned to allege that “over 30 million emails were deliberately destroyed” as part of a scheme to keep evidence from police investigators. The document asserted that “a pivotal role” in directing the email deletions had been played by former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, still a senior executive for Murdoch, and former NGN general manager William Lewis, now publisher and CEO of The Washington Post.
Both Brooks and Lewis have denied allegations of wrongdoing. NGN has acknowledged that emails were removed, but said that was part of a planned system migration and a new data retention policy, and that additional instructions were given to preserve emails potentially relevant to a police investigation.
The problems at the Post may have come to public attention starting with Bezos’ stunning decision last fall to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris with just days to go before the election. But the downward spiral really began with the appointment of Lewis to replace outgoing publisher Fred Ryan, and with Bezos’ stubborn insistence on sticking with Lewis despite embarrassing revelations about his involvement in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal.
NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, who broke the news about Lewis’ involvement earlier this year, revisited that issue on Tuesday after reports of a settlement were circulating but before it was consummated. Though Folkenflik was careful to note that Lewis was “not a defendant in the case, and has denied all wrongdoing,” he added:
The plaintiffs allege that Lewis and the other executives orchestrated the deletion of millions of emails and withheld other material from police. According to police notes presented in court filings, Lewis told a police investigation they had to delete the emails to head off a scheme by Watson and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get materials surreptitiously from Brooks’ computer.
Brown and Watson have denied any such plot; News UK has not to date produced any evidence publicly to support its existence. Brown has demanded a criminal investigation from Scotland Yard, which opened a preliminary review to determine whether a full investigation is warranted.
Former Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, now a contributor to The Guardian, wrote last Friday that Bezos needs to act quickly in order to save the Post. Her recommendations: hold an on-the-record meeting with the staff; make it clear that “he understands the importance of editorial freedom and pledge not to interfere with it”; and fire Lewis.
I wonder if it might be too late, though Sullivan’s advice would at least represent a dramatic break with the way Bezos has run the Post over the past year. My preference, given his unimaginable wealth, is that donate the Post to a nonprofit foundation and endow it, as the late Gerry Lenfest did with The Philadelphia Inquirer did in 2016.
Clearly, though, Bezos has to do something. Actually, let me revise that: He doesn’t have to do a damn thing. But I’m ever hopeful that he will.
What is proving to be a debacle for The Washington Post is simultaneously turning into a boon for other news outlets. A week after Post owner Jeff Bezos killed an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris, a number of other publications that endorsed Harris say that subscriptions are on the rise.
The Post lost 250,000 of its 2.5 million digital and print subscribers after the paper announced that it would no longer endorse candidates for political office. Bezos compounded his problems with an op-ed in which he defended the decision and whined about how hard it is to be a billionaire newspaper owner.
Among the publications taking advantage was The Philadelphia Inquirer, which fortuitously published its endorsement of Harris last Friday, the same day that word of the Post’s non-endorsement was getting around. The Inquirer’s endorsement quickly made the rounds on social media — and, according to Sara Guaglione of Digiday, the paper immediately experienced a bump. She wrote:
After publishing its endorsement of Harris on Oct. 25, The Philadelphia Inquirer gained over 4,200 new digital subscribers, “about three times a typical week for us and our biggest week of new starts ever,” Inquirer publisher and CEO Lisa Hughes said in an emailed statement. The Inquirer also saw “a bump” in individual donations to its journalism fund with The Lenfest Institute, she added. Donations to The Inquirer’s High-Impact Journalism Fund are up about 15% since the endorsement, according to a company spokesperson, without providing exact figures.
The Seattle Times published its endorsement of Harris this past Tuesday, a day when it could take full advantage of the outrage that had broken out over Bezos’ action and by a similar action at the Los Angeles Times ordered by billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. Under the headline “Hell, yes! The Seattle Times edit board endorses Kamala Harris for president,” the paper’s publisher, Frank Blethen, and Kate Riley, the editorial-page editor, devote nearly as much space to disparaging the Post and the LA Times as they do to touting Harris’ credentials. (The Blethen family owns the Seattle Times.) Blethen writes:
We take our journalism and community service very seriously. We have been preparing our fifth generation for Times leadership when I step down at the end of 2025. And members of the sixth interned in our newsroom this summer.
So it is with consternation that I and editorial page editor Kate Riley learned that the publishers of two of America’s most venerable newspapers on both coasts decided not to weigh in at all, even though their editorial boards were preparing Harris endorsements.
In contrast to the Philadelphia and Seattle papers, The Boston Globe endorsed Harris back on Oct. 18, too early to take much advantage — but it’s trying nevertheless.
“Jim Dao, our editorial page editor, has been actively sharing our position on endorsements this week,” said Globe director of communications Carla Kath by email. “We are pleased with our growth in subscribers over the past few days with new subscribers indicating that they subscribed because we maintained our tradition of endorsements.” In a follow-up, though, she added, “We are not sharing numbers at this time.”
Digiday’s Guaglione reported that The Guardian has also benefited from the Post’s folly. The Guardian endorsed Harris on Oct. 23; after Bezos’ cancellation became public, Guardian US editor Betsy Reed sent an email to readers asking for donations. Guaglione wrote:
By Oct. 28, U.S. readers had pledged roughly $1.8 million to the Guardian, according to a company spokesperson. The Guardian brought in $485,000 in reader donations that Friday, a U.S. daily fundraising record. Saturday brought in even more — $619,000 in reader donations.
I’m among The Guardian’s new donors. I actually canceled the Post months ago after my employer, Northeastern University, began offering free digital subscriptions to faculty and students. Otherwise I would not have canceled the Post despite my anger at Bezos — but I did figure that the moment was right to show support for another news organization. (I was also a weekly media columnist for The Guardian from 2007 to ’11.)
During the 2016 presidential campaign and throughout the Trump presidency, news organizations benefited from an increase in subscriptions, donations and audience. Although a second Trump presidency would be far too high a price for our democracy to pay, we may be seeing the early stages of that happening once again if the worst comes to pass.
Clarification: The Seattle Times endorsed Harris on Sept. 1; that editorial is behind a paywall. The “Hell, yes!” endorsement is a follow-up, and is free.
The old Tampa Bay Hotel, now part of the University of Tampa. Photo (cc) 2007 by Ebyabe.
I’m back from vacation, and this morning I have a round-up of some items about the state of local news. Unfortunately, my top story is not good. The Tampa Bay Times, a news organization that does it the right way, is nevertheless facing a 20% cut to its payroll.
The paper, which has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes over the years, will offer buyouts to its 270 full-time employees, a number that includes 100 journalists. Top executives will take 10% pay cuts through the end of 2024, with chair and CEO Conan Gallaty taking 20%.
The Times has long since given up on daily print; it currently publishes print editions on Wednesdays and Sundays, and is digital-only the rest of the week.
What’s distressing is that the Times has an admirable business model. It’s a for-profit paper owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, a highly regarded journalism-education organization. The original idea, though, was that some of the Times’ profits would be used to subsidize Poynter. Those profits have long since dried up, forcing Poynter to raise money on its own. That model is the opposite of a newer hybrid, The Philadelphia Inquirer, a for-profit owned by the nonprofit Lenfest Institute, which was specifically set up to support the Inquirer and other news organizations.
The Times writes that “print advertising and circulation have declined steadily and digital revenue growth hasn’t made up for the shortfall.”
With other major Florida newspapers in the hands of bottom line-obsessed entities such as McClatchy (the Miami Herald) and Alden Global Capital (the Orlando Sentinel), it’s vital that the Tampa Bay Times survives and thrives.
The Maine event
I had not realized that Reade Brower was still in the newspaper business until I received a press release earlier this week announcing an innovative venture on the coast of Maine.
Brower sold The Portland Press Herald and its affiliated newspapers last summer to the National Trust for Local News — then turned around and helped assemble a company called Islandport Media. Now he and another veteran publisher, Kathleen Fleury Capetta, are combining four newspapers into the weekly Midcoast Villager, which will debut in September.
The four papers are the Camden Herald, The Free Press, The Republican Journal and The Courier-Gazette. Islandport’s holdings also include The Ellsworth American, a respected weekly newspaper that will not be part of the merger.
When I hear news like this, I worry that it’s a cost-cutting move and that the new entity will concentrate more on regional news than hyperlocal coverage. The press release, though, says that the company has been hiring, and will supplement the paper with targeted community newsletters. Brower and Fleury Capetta have something else in mind as well:
The publication will further invest in the community by opening the Villager Café in downtown Camden in 2025. The cafe will offer breakfast, lunch and coffee, but will also serve as a community center that hosts events related to local journalism, brings people together to talk about complex issues, and showcases local talent with concerts, readings, discussions and more. People are hungry for social connections; the cafe and the publication will bring people together and provide a greater sense of belonging for community residents.
This is a phenomenally great idea, reminiscent of the burgers-beers-and-news formula unveiled several years ago by The Big Bend Sentinel in Texas. Civic engagement and news consumption are intimately tied together, so giving residents a reason to gather and talk about local issues will surely help the newspaper as well.
“We really believe that we just have to save local news, and this is an effort to do that,” Fleury Capetta told Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan.
Let there be Light
There’s some very good news at The New Bedford Light, a high-profile nonprofit that covers the South Coast of Massachusetts: Karen Bordeleau, a former executive editor of The Providence Journal, has been named editor. She’ll work alongside the current editor, Andy Tomolonis, until he retires next year, according to an announcement by CEO Lean Camara.
Bordeleau is a fellow graduate of Northeastern University’s journalism program. Not to reveal her age (or mine), but back in the 1970s we both worked as co-op students at Rhode Island’s Woonsocket Call, which, sadly, was merged into The Times of Pawtucket last October.
Congratulations to Karen — and to the Light, which has acquired a first-rate editor to succeed Tomolonis and, before him, founding editor Barbara Roessner.
The Inquirer editorial is reminiscent of this famous Boston Globe parody
On Saturday afternoon, The Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial headlined “To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race.” It was intended as a rebuke to The New York Times’ editorial board, which on Friday posted a piece using the same headline, the only difference being that it was aimed at President Biden rather than Trump.
The Inquirer’s editorial was brilliant and inspired. It’s attracted a lot of well-deserved attention, and I hope it results in an upsurge of subscriptions. It begins:
President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.
But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.
In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.
It reminded me of The Boston Globe’s fake front page from April 2016, imagining what a Trump residency would be like if he somehow were elected president, which of course we all knew would never happen. The page, dated a year into the future, led with the prescient headline “Deportations to Begin.”
Ultimately, though, the Inquirer’s editorial, like the Globe’s fake front, is performance art. Pro-Biden social media exploded in outrage at the Times’ editorial as well as the insistence of many pundits that Biden should step aside following his disastrous debate performance Thursday night. Why, critics asked, isn’t the Times demanding that Trump drop out given that he’s a lying, felonious insurrectionist?
The answer, of course, is that the Times wants Biden to end his campaign because they’re terrified that Trump will beat him — as am I. It’s ludicrous to believe that there’s anything anyone could do to persuade Trump to drop out. He needs to be defeated — and, while we’re at it, to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and imprisoned if found guilty of crimes that warrant such punishment.
The Inquirer’s editorial is a great thought experiment, and I’m glad it’s grabbed so much attention. The Times’ editorial, on the other hand, is a serious plea for Democrats to do whatever it takes to keep Trump from being elected to a second term and ushering in an era of right-wing authoritarianism. Apologists for Biden’s frighteningly awful debate performance should stop pretending otherwise.
