NEW YORK CITY (NYC) — The New York Times editorial board will no longer make recommendations in state elections, the newspaper’s opinion editor announced on Monday.
Editor Kathleen Kingsbury did not give a specific reason for the change, saying only, “Opinion will continue to provide a perspective on the elections, candidates and issues at stake.” She noted that the Times remains “rooted in New York City.”
The change will take effect immediately. The editorial board will not comment on the November congressional and Senate elections. However, the editorial board will continue to make recommendations for presidential elections, as it has done since 1860, the Times said.
The Times editorial board is composed of members of the Opinion department and operates independently of the newsroom. A description of the editorial board on the Times website states that it “advocates for a world that is both free and just and believes that societies must strive to balance these values to succeed.”
Former editorial board member Carol Giacomo condemned the decision on X, calling it “regrettable.”
“The New York Times is giving up its accountability mechanism and its ability to influence the debate/outcome in its own backyard,” she said.
The Times editorial board joins a growing list of publications that are withdrawing from political endorsements. In 2022, Alden Global Capital, the country’s second-largest newspaper publisher, announced that its newspapers would no longer make endorsements in presidential, gubernatorial or Senate elections.
Alden Global Capital said at the time that readers were becoming increasingly “confused” about the difference between news and opinion.
In late June, the Times editorial board called on President Joe Biden to abandon his re-election bid, citing the president’s poor performance in the first presidential debate. The editorial board wrote at the time that the Democratic Party needed to “select someone more capable of taking Biden’s place” to defeat former President Donald Trump.
