Wednesday,
October 30, 2024 - Billionaire capitalist and Washington Post
owner Jeff Bezos has defended his publication’s decision not to back Kamala
Harris or even her rival, Donald Trump ahead of the November 5 election,
insisting political endorsements “create a perception of bias.”
Washington
Post CEO and Publisher Will Lewis announced on Friday that the newspaper was
forgoing its pick for president, leading to outrage inside and outside of the
newsroom.
The
newspaper’s editorial board reportedly had a draft penned in favor of Vice
President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump before the kibosh
was put on the endorsement.
More than
200,000 Washington Post readers so far have ended their digital subscriptions
following the controversial decision, NPR reported on Monday.
The
paper’s decision not to endorse in the 2024 election marks the first time in 36
years it won’t issue an endorsement.
Lewis, the
paper’s publisher, wrote on Friday that the Washington Post was not breaking
from tradition, but rather returning to the paper’s practice from years ago of
not endorsing candidates.
He said it
was “consistent with the values the Post has always stood for” and it reflected
the paper’s faith in “our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
Bezos
broke his silence on the matter in an op-ed published by the Washington Post
Monday night, October 28, arguing his newspaper decision to end its
long-running practice of endorsing a candidate for the White House is a
“principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
“Presidential
endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters
in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’
None,” he wrote.
“What
presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A
perception of non-independence.”
Bezos, in
the op-ed, also stressed that the American public doesn’t trust the press
anymore and news organizations “must work harder to control what we can control
to increase our credibility.”
“We must
be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to
swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement,” he wrote.
“Most
people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant
attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.”
The
second-richest man in the world added his paper and the New York Times win
numerous awards, but “increasingly we talk only to a certain elite.”
“Many
people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and
other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and
deepen divisions,” Bezos stated.
The Amazon
founder also addressed an allegation from one of the staffers that stepped
down, editor-at-large Robert Kagan, that Bezos reached a deal with Trump
because the GOP nominee met with executives at Blue Origin the space company
owned by Bezos – after the Washington Post’s announcement.
“I would
also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here,” he
wrote “Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or
in any way about this decision.”
Bezos
claimed he was unaware of the meeting between Blue Origin and Trump that
happened the same day as the non-endorsement announcement, and when he later
found out about it, he “sighed.”
“I knew it
would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything
other than a principled decision,” he wrote.
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