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On Friday, The Washington Post reported that it would not endorse a presidential candidate this election, a day after The Los Angeles Times announced that it would do the same. The official reason for these decisions were, frankly, bullshit: The Post claimed that it was reverting back to “tradition” by not offering an endorsement, while The Times didn’t want to worsen “division.” You don’t have to be especially cynical to understand the real reason: The billionaires who own these papers are wary of antagonizing Donald Trump, who might very well become our next president.

The non-endorsements have clearly backfired. Members of the editorial boards of both papers have resigned on principle, and The Post, at least, has lost “thousands” of subscriptions. In retrospect, it would have been smarter for Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, the uber-wealthy owners of the WaPo and LAT respectively, to endorse Kamala Harris as expected and avoid any outcry. That they didn’t signals two things: They expect Trump to win on November 5, and they’ve lost whatever appetite they’d once had to antagonize him. It’s also quite possible that, like many rich people, they wouldn’t really mind Trump’s second term so much.

I fully agree that the non-endorsements were a craven and stupid decision. But canceling a subscription over this isn’t much smarter.

There are basically three newspapers left in the United States with the resources and ambition to hold government officials accountable at the national level: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. (The Los Angeles Times once held this status, I’d argue, but now occupies a distant second-tier.) The Post, for all of its recent struggles, is still a great paper, particularly in its coverage of politics and the workings of the federal government. People who don’t work in the media don’t understand how expensive and challenging it is to provide factual, deeply sourced news and analysis about events from around the world, particularly when it offends powerful interests. This kind of newspaper work isn’t profitable, and must be subsidized by other fare that reaches a much wider audience, such as games and lifestyle coverage.

It’s the news that’s what’s valuable about a newspaper. Not the op-ed section. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a good op-ed column, but insightful opinion is pretty easy to find on the internet for free. The unsigned editorials are occasionally useful when they provide guidance in local elections, a practice that The New York Times inexplicably curtailed earlier this year. But I struggle to imagine a single person whose vote for president would change based on reading a newspaper editorial. Obviously, The Post’s decision to pull its endorsement for Kamala Harris at the last minute was shameful. But it doesn’t make The Post less valuable as a product than it was 48 hours ago.

Last year, a number of people canceled their subscriptions to The NYT over the paper’s coverage of trans issues, which they felt framed trans rights in a reactionary way and devoted too much attention to the small minority of de-transitioners. I’m sympathetic to this criticism, and while I didn’t consider canceling my own subscription, I can at least understand the logic behind it: Canceling over a paper’s editorial slant is perfectly legitimate. I’m even sympathetic to those who canceled their Times’ subscription over the notorious Tom Cotton “send in the troops” column in 2020, even though I now believe that this was a hysterical overreaction.

But back to the issue at hand. Let’s say that newspapers and magazines across the United States decided, en masse, to stop endorsing candidates for president. Would anyone care? Would anyone miss it? Would there be any drop in the quality of journalism at these institutions? If The Post had announced in, say, 2022, that it wouldn’t endorse a candidate in the ‘24 election, would there have been any outrage? And if they were to reverse course tomorrow and say that, owing to the public outcry, it would again resume endorsements — would anyone be reassured and comforted?

I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t criticize newspapers because they’re too precious — if anything, I think The NYT and other papers should install or bring back public editors for precisely this reason. But canceling your subscription to a newspaper that publishes tens of thousands of stories each year from around the world, many at great expense and at high personal risk to reporters and photographers, over a decision that does not affect this coverage whatsoever doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s a piece of performative outrage that hurts the very people in position to influence those who made the decision in the first place.