Newspapers don't generally do it, but I've never seen it as a matter of avoiding interference. Rather, it's just that we simply don't have much interest one way or the other in most elections. The newspapers don't spend a lot of time covering them and would not consider themselves sufficiently knowledgeable to make an endorsement.
The American election is special, in that it's the "leader of the free world". What we do here affects everybody, in a way that even the leadership of Germany, France, and England doesn't. Perhaps we'd have an opinion about the leadership in Russia or China, but they don't have free elections.
The government should probably refrain from making an endorsement, but if people can't figure out the distinction between a government and a newspaper, that's their own lookout.