Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
The Washington Post Constructing at One Franklin Sq. Constructing in Washington, D.C., June 5, 2024.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Pictures
The Washington Post stated Friday that it’s going to not endorse a candidate within the presidential election this 12 months — or ever once more — breaking a long time of custom and sparking fast criticism of the choice.
However the newspaper additionally printed an article by two employees reporters revealing that editorial web page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over GOP nominee Donald Trump within the election.
“The choice to not publish was made by The Post’s proprietor — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” the article stated, citing two sources briefed on the occasions.
Trump, whereas president, had been crucial of the billionaire Bezos and the Post, which he bought in 2013.
The newspaper in 2016 and once more in 2020 endorsed Trump’s election opponents, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, in editorials that condemned the Republican in blunt phrases.
In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it had misplaced a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft as a result of Trump had used “improper pressure … to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.
The Post since 1976 had commonly endorsed candidates for president, aside from the 1988 race. All these endorsements had been for Democrats.
In an announcement to CNBC, when requested about Bezos’ purported position in killing the endorsement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird stated, “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”
On Saturday, Post writer Will Lewis issued an announcement denying that Bezos performed a job in killing the deliberate endorsement.
“Reporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate,” Lewis stated within the assertion. “He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
The Post on Friday night printed a 3rd article, signed by opinion columnists for the newspaper, who stated, “The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake.”
“It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years,” the column stated. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”
CNBC has requested remark from Amazon, the place Bezos stays the biggest shareholder.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his assembly with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the UK diplomatic residence in New York Metropolis, Sept. 20, 2021.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Pictures Information | Getty Pictures
Lewis, in an article printed on-line explaining the choice, wrote, “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”
“We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.
“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” he wrote.
“That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
Seven of the 13 paragraphs of Lewis’ article both quoted at size or referred to Post Editorial Board statements in 1960 and 1972 explaining the paper’s rationale for not endorsing presidential candidates in these years, which included its id as “an independent newspaper.”
Lewis famous that the paper had endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976 “for understandable reasons at the times” — which he didn’t determine.
“But we had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” Lewis wrote.
“Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent,” he wrote. “And that is what we are and will be.”
Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, a member of the paper’s opinions part, resigned following the choice, a number of information shops reported.
Greater than 10,000 reader feedback had been posted on Lewis’ article, many of them blasting the Post for its choice and saying they had been canceling their subscriptions.
“The most consequential election in our country, a choice between Fascism and Democracy, and you sit out? Cowards. Unethical, fearful cowards,” wrote one remark. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription, because you are putting business ahead of ethics and morals.”
The announcement got here days after Mariel Garza, the top of The Los Angeles Times‘ editorial board, resigned in protest after that paper’s proprietor, Patrick Quickly-Shiong, determined in opposition to operating a presidential endorsement.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza instructed the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Quickly-Shiong, like Bezos, is a billionaire.
Marty Baron, the previous editor of The Washington Post, referred to as that paper’s choice “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”
″@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invite to additional intimidate proprietor @jeffbezos (and others),” Baron wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness at an establishment famed for braveness.”
The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the newspaper’s staff, in a statement posted on the social media site X said it was “deeply involved that The Washington Post — an American information establishment within the nation’s capital — would decide to not endorse presidential candidates, particularly a mere 11 days forward of an immensely consequential election.”
“The message from our chief govt, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us involved that administration interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Guild said in the statement, which noted the paper’s reporting about Bezos’ role in the decision.
“We’re already seeing cancellations from as soon as loyal readers,” the Guild said. “This choice undercuts the work of our members at a time after we ought to be constructing our readers’ belief, not dropping it.”
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Former Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose stories about the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, in a statement said, “We respect the normal independence of the editorial web page, however this choice 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s personal overwhelming reportorial proof on the risk Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
“Beneath Jeff Bezos’s possession, the Washington Post’s information operation has used its considerable sources to scrupulously examine the hazard and injury a second Trump presidency might trigger to the longer term of American democracy and that makes this choice much more stunning and disappointing, particularly this late within the electoral course of,” Woodward and Bernstein said.
Post columnist Karen Attiah, in a post on the social media site Threads, wrote, “Immediately has been an absolute stab within the again.”
“What an insult to these of us who’ve actually put our careers and lives on the road to name out threats to human rights and democracy,” Attiah wrote.
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, in his own tweet on the news wrote, “Step one in direction of fascism is when the free press cowers in worry.”
Trump in August told Fox Business News that Bezos called him after the Republican narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
“He was very good though he owns The Washington Post,” Trump said of Bezos.
Bezos last posted on X on July 13, hours after the assassination attempt.
“Our former President confirmed super grace and braveness underneath literal fireplace tonight,” Bezos wrote in that tweet. “So grateful for his security and so unhappy for the victims and their households.”
Trump on Friday met in Austin, Texas, with executives from the Bezos-owned area exploration firm Blue Origin, amongst them CEO David Limp, the Related Press reported