The aftermath of Joe Biden’s debate disaster unsurprisingly prompted a flood of comment from pundits of all persuasions, but only a handful of those opinions made news—among them, a New York Times editorial calling for Biden to withdraw from the race and a similar one in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The seriousness with which these two editorials were received reminds us that, even as the number of newspapers has precipitously declined, the ones that remain play a role for which there is still no clear replacement.

It might seem obvious, given its political stances, that the Times would draw attention by calling for a Democratic president to withdraw. Man-bites-dog stories make headlines, as do editorials from the “paper of record” that frequently downplayed Biden’s cognitive decline until recently. But there is more to its significance than the obvious politics.