Posted on 10/25/2024 5:36:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year, breaking decades of tradition, and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.
The newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters saying that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over GOP nominee Donald Trump in the election.
founder Jeff Bezos,” the article said, citing two sources briefed on the events.
Trump, while president, had been critical of the billionaire Bezos and the Post, which he purchased in 2013.
The newspaper in 2016 and again in 2020 endorsed Trump’s election opponents, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, in editorials that condemned the Republican in blunt terms.
In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it had lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft because Trump had used “improper pressure ... to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.
The Post since 1976 had regularly endorsed candidates for president, except for the 1988 race. All those endorsements had been for Democrats.
In a statement to CNBC, when asked about Bezos’ purported role in killing the endorsement, Post chief communications officer Kathy Baird said, “This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full.”
The Post on Friday evening published a third article, signed by opinion columnists for the newspaper, who said, “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 said. “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.”
Post publisher and chief executive Will Lewis, in an online explanation of the decision, 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 either quoted at length or referred to Post Editorial Board statements in 1960 and 1972 explaining the paper’s rationale for not endorsing presidential candidates in those years, which included its identity as “an independent newspaper.”
Lewis noted that the paper had endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976 “for understandable reasons at the times” — which he did not identify.
“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 section, resigned following the decision, multiple news outlets reported.
More than 10,000 comments were posted on Lewis’ article, many of them blasting the Post for its decision and saying they were 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 reader. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription, because you are putting business ahead of ethics and morals.”
The announcement came days after Mariel Garza, the head of The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board, resigned in protest after that paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, decided against running a presidential endorsement.
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Soon-Shiong, like Bezos, is a billionaire.
Marty Baron, the former editor of The Washington Post, called that paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”
″@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others),” Baron wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
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 concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make a decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election.”
“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis — not from the Editorial Board itself — makes us concerned that management 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 are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the Guild said. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Post columnist Karen Attiah, in a post on the social media site Threads, wrote, “Today has been an absolute stab in the back.”
“What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line to call out threats to human rights and democracy,” Attiah wrote.
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, in his own tweet on the news wrote, “The first step towards fascism is when the free press cowers in fear.”
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 nice even 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 showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote in that tweet. “So thankful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families.”
Trump on Friday met in Austin, Texas, with executives from the Bezos-owned space exploration company Blue Origin, among them CEO David Limp, the Associated Press reported
Jeff Bezos broke some serious laws in the last elections. He is trying to cover his butt now. Knowing that he may pay a price.
How would this cover it up?
He wants to make nice to Trump in some small way- Hoping that Trump will protect him if the hammer comes down on those involved in election fraud. And sadly it might work. Do you have any better reason why?
Amazing how all these so-called educated newsfolk fail to even know America is not and was not created to be a democracy. I blame educators.
Every time I hear them repeat their garbage about democracy I want to scream- just say the Pledge for heavens sake. Maybe kids don’t even learn that anymore.
And to the Republic for which it stands.
The WaPo is a dark place where America goes to die.
No matter who win the election, that will never happen.
A cascade of leftist fish wrappers who are financially suffering, refuse to post their far left snot for fear of losing even more money than they already are losing.
SOON, they will ALL be relegated to the trash heap of history and relevance. A laughing stock in the history books of failed Marxism.
Gotta love this!
good move, Mr. Bezos!
no sane human being could endorse Camel-Uh, especially considering the evil cabal that controls her
It is still significant that Washpost and LASlimes both refuse to endorse her.
How many votes will change? I dunno
WaPa knows the endorsement of Khumulah won’t get her any votes and compounded with the notion that she really is dumb as a box of rocks and an IQ to match. Yesterday the LA Times said the same thing, essentially coast to coast. Both of these papers know that a dumbass that never got a single vote will get her butt kicked.
Have the feeling the better rat stealers and cheaters might sit this one out as they won’t want a prison sentence for this dope.
Post the full “Endorsement” verbiage on X.
It’ll immediately get 50 times the views, and within hours it would get hundreds of times the views.
If they wanted folks to see the reasoning, post it.
Let the people decide.
Anyone who works in these news outlets should be thankful they have critical thinking leadership that puts propaganda last and that may save their jobs from years of bias.
Jeff Bezos is a Leftist. But he’s not an idiot. He knows that Kamala Harris will lose.
From your typey fingers to God’s neuralink....
I would love to see what future historians write about this absolutely miraculous time in human history.
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