I think this is exactly right.

I'm 100% on board with impartial reporting, with the caveats that a) endorsements are of the Opinion section, and b) the fact of the matter is that only the higher-minded news orgs would attempt impartiality -- so it's really just ceding the argument.

And LATimes and WaPo endorsements almost certainly won't have an effect on this election.

But, this reeks of cowardice. If you wanted to return to the journalistic standard of impartiality, that's a great thing to do when the pressure is low. Feb 2021 would have been perfect.

Less than two weeks before the most contentious election in modern history? And specifically when one candidate has threatened news organizations and their owners with retribution (legal, commercial, extralegal) for stories they don't like?

That's capitulation, not impartiality. If you believe in the mission of journalism, the honorable option would be to anti-endorse any candidate who threatens that mission.

If you don't believe in that mission, then what are you doing operating a newspaper?

Bezos is a coward.

100%. Or even January 2024. Shutting down the operation last minute is simply suspect in so many areas.

In 2021 nobody could have imagined that the DNC would run a candidate who completely bypassed the primary both times she ran, who hides from reporters, holds town hall meetings where only scripted questions are allowed and teleprompter is used for answers, and when teleprompter freezes she is unable to complete coherent sentences. I don't know what this is, probably anxiety, but it just doesn't look like she's cut out for the job.

And to the point of organizational endorsements - they're nonsense. There's some percentage of people, even at WaPo, who do not share those choices. Thus you can't really say that WaPo as a whole endorsed a candidate. Editors as private persons are free to endorse whoever they please, I'm sure. The newspaper, however, should, and now will, stay out of it.