The backlash over the Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election has led to subscriptions being canceled by high-profile celebrities and has left the newsroom at billionaire owner Jeff Bezos’ newspaper stunned and angry.
In the day since the Washington Post announced it would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 election, at least one editor has resigned and many of the staff are venting their anger. According to reports, billionaire Bezos blocked the endorsement of Harris.
The publication, reporting on its own inner turmoil, said, “As the news was being processed, Post journalists huddled in angry knots.”
X was packed with tweets from WAPO readers proudly canceling their subscriptions.
Horror novelist Stephen King announced on X Friday that he would no longer be a subscriber.
“After 5 years, I have canceled my subscription to the Washington Post,” King, the author of “The Shining,” wrote.
Bradley Whitford, who played a deputy White House chief of staff in the hit television show “The West Wing,” also called it quits.
“Democracy dies in darkness,” he wrote on X, mocking the newspaper’s own motto.
Marty Baron, who ran the newspaper for Bezos from 2013 to 2021, called the decision “cowardice.”
“To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election, that is just highly suspect, that is just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point,” he said in an interview Saturday on CNN.
Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, the reporting duo who broke the Watergate scandal in the Nixon administration, said the decision “ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
Under “Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more , especially this late in the electoral process,” they continued in a statement.
The Washington Post Guild, which represents newsroom employees at the newspaper, pleaded with subscribers not to begin a run on cancellations.
“We know today’s news is troubling and some of you want to cancel your subscriptions,” it said on X.
“Please remember the hardworking employees of The Washington Post — our Guild members — had nothing to do with this decision. We are the ones who make The Post and we hope you stick with us,” the message added.
William Lewis, the publisher and CEO of the Washington Post, wrote an op-ed in the newspaper explaining the decision.
“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. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way,” he wrote.
“Most of all, our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent,” Lewis said.
It’s the second time this week that a major news outlet has decided not to endorse in the presidential election.
Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire like Bezos, blocked the newspaper from endorsing Harris.
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