In the past month, we have witnessed a quiet revolution in the mainstream media. It has professedly walked away from its hyper-partisan bias symbolized by endorsements of presidential candidates. Owners of The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and others have nixed presidential endorsements — at least for 2024.

Maybe the revolution was not so quiet. The Washington Post lost 250,000 subscribers in days. Columnists Ruth Marcus and Karen Tumulty wrote op-eds criticizing the non-endorsement decision. Billionaire owner Jeff Bezos felt compelled to write an op-ed defending his decision. Nearly one-third of The Washington Post’s editorial board resigned.

The Los Angeles Times’ non-endorsement of a presidential candidate was decreed by billionaire business owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, an immigrant born in South Africa to Chinese parents.

Was the media revolution really a revolution? These newspapers did not renounce endorsements in non-presidential races that equally betray partisan bias. The Washington Post, for example, endorsed Maryland U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks over her Republican rival Larry Hogan without hearing a peep from Bezos.

What we have witnessed, in other words, is billionaire owners substituting themselves for editorial boards in presidential races. That is altogether fitting and proper. Owners enjoy a constitutionally protected right to do what they want with their property.

The First Amendment right to remain silent is as compelling as the First Amendment right to speak. If media owners do not wish to associate themselves with presidential candidates for any reason or no reason, they have a constitutional right to do so. But the owner’s silence is not obligatory. Billionaire Elon Musk owns Twitter, now X, and has shouted and gyrated his unconditional support for Donald Trump and made huge donations or expenditures in Trump’s favor in hopes of winning fat government contracts and a plum position in a Trump administration.

Media owners endorsing candidates take a risk. Readers, viewers or users may come to distrust what they see, hear or read. Media owners have a right to take that risk. The First Amendment depends on an unconstrained marketplace of ideas to sift truth from falsehood. As Justice Louis D. Brandeis put it, the remedy for ill-advised speech is more speech, not enforced silence.

Further, the distinction between news and opinion is elusive. Indeed, what are described as facts are more often interpretations. An elephant might be described as a mouse with a glandular condition. Someone asked for the sum of two plus two might reply, “Am I buying or am I selling?”

People watching the same event come away with different facts or perspectives. Journalists are no different. No one mistakes Fox News with MSNBC. Even U.S. Supreme Court Justices dispute the facts in cases before them. The news slant of The Washington Post or Los Angeles Times will not change because of the non-presidential endorsement decisions of billionaire owners Bezos and Soon-Shiong.

We depend on the critical thinking of viewers, listeners and readers to offset inescapable media bias. Journalists or media owners claiming partisan neutrality should be treated with skepticism.

The Baltimore Sun, a paper of which I am a part owner, decided in early January to cease endorsing candidates for president, like Bezos and Soon-Shiong. But that does not mean we have surrendered our philosophical, ideological or partisan inclinations. Media bias gave birth to the fabrication that Trump intended violence by commenting that Liz Cheney might think differently when “guns are trained on her face.” Media bias gave birth to the idea that Trump might “terminate” the Constitution, had the “right to do anything he wanted as president,” or resisted the peaceful transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021, which Trump has described as a lovefest like Woodstock.

In sum, to media readers, viewers and listeners, trust but verify, as President Ronald Reagan said to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.