The Washington Post Building at One Franklin Square Building on June 5, 2024 in Washington, DC.
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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.
“The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” The Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the events.
Trump, while president, had been critical of Bezos and the Post. 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, with the exception of the 1988 race. In all election years but for 1988 the paper had endorsed Democrats.
CNBC has requested comment from the Post and Amazon.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the UK diplomatic residence on September 20, 2021 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Post 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.”
Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, a member of the paper’s opinions section, resigned on the heels of 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‘s 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 the paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy at 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’s 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.”
This is developing news. Check back for updates.
