WaPo’s Endorsement Emergency

Plus: Timothee Chalamet lookalikes and NFL snacks

Happy Monday! We are basically a week away from Election Day here in the United States. As candidates make their closing arguments, we examine the fallout from candidate endorsement season. But first…

📡 ON OUR RADAR

• Dozens of ghostly, pale, ethereal beings gathered in Washington Square Park yesterday ahead of the Halloween holiday. No, not phantoms or ghouls— they were there for the viral Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest.

• The real blue wave this year: a bicoastal World Series is driving demand for licensed products from the Dodgers and the Yankees.

• Now streaming on the Chickfila app! We’re seeing a branded content renaissance as companies like Chickfila and Ritz-Carlton turn to their own original programming pipelines to reach consumers.

💡 ON OUR MINDS: WaPo’s Endorsement Emergency

• With barely a week to go before Election Day, the legacy press and their editorial leadership have made their endorsements for this year’s presidential election.

• Most of the news media, from the Times to Vogue, has endorsed VP Kamala Harris, with fewer, including the New York Post, endorsing President Trump. This leaves The Onion as the only brave paper to endorse current President Joseph R. Biden. 

• But two important papers of record, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, have opted out of the decades-old tradition, prompting backlash from inside and outside newsrooms; WaPo is reportedly hemorrhaging subscribers as a result. 

• Many point to the papers’ ultra-wealthy owners, who may have influenced their papers’ decisions to abstain— the Washington Post seemingly had a Harris endorsement ready to go and decided against it at the last minute.

• As the election approaches, news media once again finds itself in the sticky spot between business objectives and potential social blowback, emphasizing that they are not immune from the consequences of weighing in/not weighing in on politics.

🥊 QUICK HITS:

In case you missed these reads:

• Goldfish is doing one of those fake-out rebrands. 

• The Athletic took count of the Uncrustables situation in the NFL. 

• The Estée Lauder succession drama ends with Stéphane de La Faverie being named CEO.