Jeff Bezos defends Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a U.S. Presidential candidate

File picture of Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos
| Photo Credit: AP

Billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Monday (October 28, 2024) defended the newspaper’s decision not to endorse a U.S. presidential candidate as “right” and “principled” and pushed back against any notion that he ordered it up to protect his business interests.

That decision, announced Friday (October 25, 2024), has reportedly led to tens of thousands of people cancelling their subscriptions and protests from journalists with a deep history at the newspaper. The Post‘s editorial staff was prepared to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris before publisher Will Lewis wrote instead that it would be better for readers to make up their own minds.

Mr. Bezos, in “a note from our owner” published Monday evening, said that editorial endorsements create a perception of bias at a time many Americans don’t believe the media, and do nothing to tip the scales of an election.

“Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one,” Mr. Bezos said.

‘Inadequate planning’

Mr. Bezos wrote that he wished the decision to end presidential endorsements had been done earlier, “in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.”

Mr. Bezos’ decision caused an unprecedented spasm of anger both within journalism and outside it.

NPR reported on Monday that more than 2,00,000 people have cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper, citing “two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters.” A Post spokeswoman, Olivia Petersen, would not comment on the NPR report.

Subscriptions fall

A loss of subscriptions of that magnitude would be a blow to a storied news outlet that is already facing financial headwinds. The Post had more than 2.5 million subscribers last year, the bulk of them digital, making it third behind The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in circulation.

In the decision’s wake, two of the newspaper’s columnists quit, and three of the nine members of the editorial board resigned their posts. The Post’s retired former editor, Martin Baron, who was editor when Mr. Bezos bought the paper, had denounced the decision on social media as “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

The Post’s decision came only days after the Los Angeles Times also said it would not endorse a presidential candidate, which the newspaper has acknowledged has cost them thousands of subscribers.

Some critics suggested Mr. Bezos, also owner of Amazon, ordered the non-endorsement to protect his business interests, acting out of fear of retaliation if Donald Trump were elected. The Post endorsed Mr. Trump’s Democratic rivals in 2016 and 2020, and Mr. Trump has often denounced critical coverage by the paper.

Principled views

In his column, Mr. Bezos said people can see his wealth and business interests as one of two things — a bulwark against intimidation or a web of conflicting interests. He insisted that his views are principled and that his track record as Post owner since 2013 backs that up.

“I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at the Post in favor of my own interests,” he wrote. “It hasn’t happened.”

He acknowledged that the chief executive of one of his companies, the space-exploration outfit Blue Origin, met with Mr. Trump last week on the same day the non-endorsement was announced.

“I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision,” Mr. Bezos wrote. “But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand.”

He said that while he doesn’t and won’t push his own personal interests, he wouldn’t allow the Post to “stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance.”

“Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth,” he said. “They deserve to be believed.”