The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building in Washington, DC, June 5, 2024.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
The Washington Post said Friday that it would not endorse any candidate in this year's presidential election or ever again, breaking with decades of tradition and prompting immediate criticism of the decision.
But the newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters showing that editorial staff had written an endorsement for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris over Republican nominee Donald Trump in the election.
“The decision not to publish was made by the owner of the post – Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos,” the article said, citing two sources briefed on the events.
As president, Trump was critical of billionaire Bezos and the post office, which he bought in 2013.
The newspaper supported Trump's election opponent Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden in 2016 and again in 2020 in editorials that condemned the Republican in blunt terms.
In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it lost a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon to Microsoft because Trump exerted “undue pressure … to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos.
The Post has regularly endorsed presidential candidates since 1976, with the exception of the 1988 election. All of these endorsements were for Democrats.
In a statement to CNBC, the Post's communications chief Kathy Baird, when asked about Bezos' alleged role in preventing support, said: “This was a decision by the Washington Post not to support and I refer you to the full statement Editor.”
The Post published a third article on Friday evening, signed by the paper's opinion columnists, saying: “The Washington Post's decision not to support the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake.”
“It represents a departure from the fundamental editorial beliefs of the newspaper that we love and have worked for for a combined 218 years,” the column said. “This is a moment for the institution to make clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, as well as the threat that Donald Trump poses to it – the very points The Post made in supporting Trump's opponents in the years 2016 and 2020.”
CNBC has requested comment from Amazon, where Bezos remains the largest shareholder.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the British diplomatic residence in New York City on September 20, 2021.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Will Lewis, publisher and executive director of the Post, wrote in an article published online explaining the decision: “The Washington Post will not endorse a presidential candidate in this election. Not even in future presidential elections.”
“We are returning to our roots of opposing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.
“We recognize that this will be interpreted in different ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, a condemnation of another, or an abdication of responsibility,” he wrote.
“This is inevitable. We don't see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values the Post has always stood for and with what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in the service of American ethics, reverence for the rule of law and respect for human freedom everywhere their aspects.”
Seven of the 13 paragraphs of Lewis' article quoted extensively or referenced Post Editorial Board opinions from 1960 and 1972, which explained the newspaper's reasons for not supporting presidential candidates in those years, including its identity as an “independent newspaper belonged.
Lewis noted that the newspaper had supported Jimmy Carter in 1976 “for reasons that were understandable at the time” – which he did not specify.
“But we were close to it and this is what we’re coming back to,” Lewis wrote.
“Our job as a newspaper in the capital of the most important country in the world is to be independent,” he wrote. “And that is who we are and will be.”
Multiple news outlets reported that Post Editor-in-Chief Robert Kagan, a member of the paper's opinion section, resigned following the decision.
More than 10,000 reader comments were posted on Lewis' article, many of them criticizing the Post for its decision and saying they would cancel their subscriptions.
“The most consequential election in our country, a choice between fascism and democracy, and you're sitting outside? Cowards. Unethical, fearful cowards,” wrote one commenter. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription because you put business over ethics and morals.”
The announcement came days after Mariel Garza, editorial director of the Los Angeles Times, resigned in protest after that newspaper's owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, decided not to run for president.
“I’m resigning because I want to make it clear that I don’t agree with us remaining silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people must stand up. So I get up.”
Like Bezos, Soon-Shiong is a billionaire.
Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, called that newspaper's decision “cowardice of which democracy is the victim.”
“@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others),” Baron wrote. “Disturbing spinelessness in an institution known for its courage.”
The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the newspaper's employees, said in a statement on the social media site that it supports presidential candidates, especially just 11 days before a hugely consequential election.”
“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis – not the editorial board itself – gives us cause for concern that management has interfered with the work of our editorial board members,” the Guild said in the statement responding to the newspaper's reporting on the Role of Bezos referred to in the decision.
“We are already seeing cancellations from once-loyal readers,” the guild said. “This decision undermines the work of our members at a time when we should be building, not losing, the trust of our readers.”
Read more about CNBC's politics coverage
Former Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose stories about the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for public service, said in a statement: “We respect the traditional independence of the newsroom, but this Decision. “11 days before the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s overwhelming reporting on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
“Under Jeff Bezos' leadership, The Washington Post's news department has used its abundant resources to thoroughly examine the dangers and damage that a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy, and that makes this decision even more surprising and more disappointing, especially at this late stage in the electoral process,” Woodward and Bernstein said.
Post columnist Karen Attiah wrote in a post on the social media site Threads: “Today was 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 denounce threats to human rights and democracy,” Attiah wrote.
Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, wrote in his own tweet about the news: “The first step toward fascism is for the free press to cower in fear.”
Trump told Fox Business News in August that Bezos called him after the Republican narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania in July.
“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 attack.
“Our former president showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire tonight,” Bezos wrote in that tweet. “So grateful for his safety and so sad for the victims and their families.”
Trump met with executives from Bezos-owned space exploration company Blue Origin, including CEO David Limp, in Austin, Texas, on Friday, the Associated Press reported
Comments are closed.