Jeff Bezos defends Washington Post non-endorsement after subscribers flee and staffers resign
CNN
By Jon Passantino and Liam Reilly, CNN
(CNN) — The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, in his first public comments since igniting uproar last week over his decision to withhold the venerable newspaper’s endorsement in the presidential race, defended the move in a rare op-ed published Monday evening by the Post.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, wrote. “No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
The statement came hours after three members of the Post’s editorial board resigned over the decision not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris and thousands of readers canceled their subscriptions to the newspaper. High-profile Post staffers have also publicly expressed their dismay over how the situation was handled and raised questions over the reason for the eleventh-hour decision.
Critics, including former Post executive editor Marty Baron, have called the decision “craven” and “cowardly” in a clear attempt to appease former President Donald Trump, should he recapture the White House in November.
“I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it,” Bezos acknowledged. “That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.”
Hours after Post publisher Will Lewis announced Friday the decision to not endorse in the upcoming election or in the future, Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, a Bezos-founded spacefaring company. In his op-ed, Bezos addressed allegations he made the decision to withhold the endorsement to curry favor with Trump, saying he had no advance knowledge of the meeting.
“I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally,” he wrote.
Bezos said he “sighed” when he found out about the meeting between Trump and Blue Origin chief executive Dave Limp, “because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand.”
Bezos emphasized there was “no connection” between the meeting and the Post’s decision, calling speculation to the contrary “false.”
Bezos, however, acknowledged the “appearance of conflict,” noting that his work across Amazon and Blue Origin has been a “complexifier for the Post.” Despite this, he brushed aside the notion that his immense wealth could lead to political favors, instead calling his billions “a bulwark against intimidation” and underscoring his lack of interference in the Post’s affairs in the 11 years since he purchased the publication.
“While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important,” he wrote. “The stakes are too high.”
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