Tuesday, October 29, 2024 - Billionaire capitalist and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has defended his publication’s decision not to back Kamala Harris or even her rival, Donald Trump ahead of the November 5 election, insisting political endorsements “create a perception of bias.”
Washington Post CEO and Publisher Will Lewis announced on
Friday that the newspaper was forgoing its pick for president, leading to
outrage inside and outside of the newsroom.
The newspaper’s editorial board reportedly had a draft penned
in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump
before the kibosh was put on the endorsement.
More than 200,000 Washington Post readers so far have ended
their digital subscriptions following the controversial decision, NPR reported
on Monday.
The paper’s decision not to endorse in the 2024 election
marks the first time in 36 years it won’t issue an endorsement.
Lewis, the paper’s publisher, wrote on Friday that the
Washington Post was not breaking from tradition, but rather returning to the
paper’s practice from years ago of not endorsing candidates.
He said it was “consistent with the values the Post has
always stood for” and it reflected the paper’s faith in “our readers’ ability
to make up their own minds.”
Bezos broke his silence on the matter in an op-ed published
by the Washington Post Monday night, October 28, arguing his newspaper decision
to end its long-running practice of endorsing a candidate for the White House
is a “principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an
election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with
Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None,” he wrote.
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a
perception of bias. A perception of non-independence.”
Bezos, in the op-ed, also stressed that the American public
doesn’t trust the press anymore and news organizations “must work harder to
control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
“We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement,”
he wrote.
“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t
see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality
lose.”
The second-richest man in the world added his paper and the
New York Times win numerous awards, but “increasingly we talk only to a certain
elite.”
“Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate
social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread
misinformation and deepen divisions,” Bezos stated.
The Amazon founder also addressed an allegation from one of
the staffers that stepped down, editor-at-large Robert Kagan, that Bezos
reached a deal with Trump because the GOP nominee met with executives at Blue
Origin the space company owned by Bezos – after the Washington Post’s
announcement.
“I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any
kind is at work here,” he wrote “Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted
or informed at any level or in any way about this decision.”
Bezos claimed he was unaware of the meeting between Blue
Origin and Trump that happened the same day as the non-endorsement
announcement, and when he later found out about it, he “sighed.”
“I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like
to frame this as anything other than a principled decision,” he wrote.
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