Washington Post Staff Is Furious That Bezos Nixed Presidential Endorsement
For the first time in 36 years, The Washington Post will not be endorsing a candidate in a presidential election — and their newsroom is furious.
On Friday, the Post’s publisher and CEO Will Lewis announced in a published statement that they “will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election.”
“Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be,” he added.
The Post itself reported that its editorial leadership was prepared days ago to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris over her opponent, former President Donald Trump, but a last minute intervention by the paper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos killed the planned endorsement.
Lewis — who previously headed the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal and cut his teeth in conservative UK publications — was hand picked by Bezos in 2023 to take over the masthead at the Post. His tenure has been marked by a series of ethics scandals, including the ouster of editor Sally Buzbee after she refused to bury a story at his request, and revelations earlier this year that Lewis had offered NPR an exclusive interview in exchange for an agreement to kill a story about Lewis’ involvement in covering up illegal phone hacking by Murdoch-owned tabloids.
Lewis is Bezos’ man and, according to the Post’s report, Bezos ordered him to kill the publication’s endorsement of Harris — which had already been drafted.
When the news broke, the split between staff members at the Post and their management was almost instantly apparent.
“We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post — an American news institution in the nation’s capital — would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” the Washington Post Guild wrote in a statement on Friday. ‘”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.”
“We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers,” the statement continued. “This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
Others were less diplomatic in their response. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t,” one Post opinion columnist told Semafor on Friday. A member of the Post’s editorial department told CNN that the decision was “an outrageous abdication of responsibility,” adding that “democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies when people anticipatorily consent to a fascist’s whims.”
Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Post who edited Jamal Khashoggi — a Post journalist who was brutally murdered by agents of the Saudi government in 2018 — wrote that the non-endorsement was an “absolute stab in the back,” and “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.”
Post Opinion Columnist Robert Kagan confirmed to multiple publications that he had resigned from the newspaper in protest of the intervention by Bezos.
Longtime Post editor Marty Baron, who retired in 2021, was also dismayed by the news. “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners),” he texted his former colleagues.
Earlier this week, a similar implosion took place at The Los Angeles Times after the paper issued its own non-endorsement for the 2024 race. Earlier this month the Times’ billioniare owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, pulled the plug on plans by the editorial staff to endorse Harris. As a result, Times Editorials Editor Mariel Garza handed in her resignation on Wednesday. “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.”
The New York Times endorsed Harris in September, calling her the “only patriotic choice” for president. Rolling Stone also endorsed Harris in September, noting that she is “a lifelong, dedicated public servant who believes that government exists to help and protect the American people” and that Trump is “demonstrably unfit to ever hold office again.”
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