Jeff Bezos has broken his silence following The Washington Post’s controversial decision to block Vice President Kamala Harris’ endorsement.
The billionaire insisted in a lengthy op-ed that the decision was not related to his vast business interests, while claiming that endorsements “create a perception of bias.”
Bezos argued that ending the newspaper’s long-standing practice of endorsing a candidate is based on principle.
‘Presidential expressions of support do not change the outcome of an election. No undecided voter in Pennsylvania will say, “I agree with the endorsement of Newspaper A.” None,” Bezos wrote.
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending it is a decision of principle, and it is the right decision.”
The owner of The Washington Post and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has broken his silence following the newspaper’s decision to block Vice President Kamala Harris’ endorsement as president.
In a lengthy op-ed posted on the Post’s website Monday evening, Bezos attempted to justify his publication’s position
Whether they were on principle or not, more than 200,000 people canceled their digital subscriptions to the Washington Post on Monday afternoon.
Not all cancellations are effective immediately, NPR explained, but it described the paper’s dumping as “a tidal wave of cancellations.”
This figure represents approximately 8 percent of the newspaper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, including print.
The number of cancellations continued to grow on Monday afternoon.
A number of columnists have also resigned from the Washington Post in recent days as the newspaper deals with the fallout from owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to block a preliminary endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as president.
The Washington Post has announced it will not endorse a presidential candidate, sparking anger among liberal readers who are vowing to cancel their subscriptions to the newspaper.
In a message on Friday, William Lewis, the newspaper’s publisher and CEO, said it would not endorse a presidential candidate in the Nov. 5 election or in future presidential elections.
“We are returning to our roots of not supporting presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.
“The Washington Post’s decision not to endorse the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake,” 20 columnists wrote in an op-ed on the Post’s own website, adding that it “marks an abandonment of the fundamental editorial beliefs of the newspaper that we love.’