The diary Washington Post took on friday the decision to abstain from endorsing a presidential candidate in the 2024 electionsa move reportedly taken by the billionaire owner Jeff Bezos after its editorial board drafted a supporting document in the elections to the vice president Kamala Harris.
The decision has sparked widespread anger within the Post newsroom and has earned the founder of Amazon a harsh sentence by voices from Democratic politics and the media.
In a note to readers on Friday, Post publisher Will Lewis, whom Bezos hired earlier this year to restructure the Post’s business and editorial strategy, said that the media would not support either Harris or former President Trumpa first for the Post in more than 35 years.
“We recognize that this will be read in a variety of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis 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.”
Lewis’s announcement was immediately met with negative reactionsincluding by former Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Marty Baronwho was hired shortly before Bezos bought the newspaper in 2013. Baron criticized the outlet’s lack of backing as a dangerous precedent.
“This is cowardice, and democracy is its victim,” said Baron, who worked for Bezos for nearly a decade. “[Trump] will see this as an invitation to further intimidate the owner [Bezos] (and others). “A disturbing lack of character in an institution famous for its courage.”
The Post’s news division reported Friday that Bezos personally made the decision not to allow an endorsement of Harris after the newspaper’s editorial board had already drafted an editorial supporting the vice president that was scheduled to be published before the election.
It is a surprising advertisement from the newspaper that proudly adopted the motto “Democracy dies in darkness” just after Trump became president in 2017.
The newspaper’s general editor, Robert Kagan, he resigned shortly after the public announcement.
The Post union issued a statement pointing the finger directly at Bezos for the decision.
“The message from our CEO, Will Lewis – not from the Editorial Board itself – concerns us that management has interfered with the work of our members at Editorial,” the Guild said. “We are already seeing cancellations from once-loyal readers. “This decision undermines the work of our members at a time when we should be building the trust of our readers, not losing it.”
Ruth Marcus an associate editor and columnist for The Post, published an opinion article in the newspaper whose title already explains the critical reaction that the decision has generated in the newsroom: “For The Post, the wrong decision at the worst possible time ”.
Former President Trump’s campaign took advantage of the news and said in a statement to The Hill: “You know it’s bad for Kamala when the Washington Compost doesn’t even have her back.”
Democrats react to Bezos’ decision
Outside the Post newsroom, several Democrats also criticized the newspaper’s decision.
“This is where the phrase ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ came from,” he commented. Susan Riceformer White House domestic policy advisor to President Biden. “This is the most hypocritical and cowardly move by a publication that is supposed to hold people in power accountable.”
The Post’s decision not to endorse a candidate is considered to have unique consequencesgiven the newspaper’s historical position since the years of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate case.
The Post’s decision not to endorse either Vice President Harris or former President Trump comes after a similar decision in the Los Angeles Timeswhere owner Patrick Soon-Shiong chose not to endorse either candidate. That decision has led several top LA Times editors to resign from the paper in protest.
Kamala Harris has received editorial support from a large majority of media outletssuch as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Vogue and Rolling Stone magazine.
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