There is chaos at The Washington Post after its owner Jeff Bezos vetoed an endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.
As reported by NPR on Friday, the paper will not be endorsing a candidate for the first time since 1980 after Bezos decided the company should remain neutral.
“The decision was revealed in a tense meeting with people on the editorial staff,” NPR reported.
“And it arrives at a time of heightened concern over whether news outlets are pulling their punches in order to appease Trump in final days of a neck and neck presidential race [against] VP Harris MORE.”
Now, staffers at the company are reportedly threatening to denounce the company or even walk out in protest.
According to Semafor’s media editor Max Tani, the paper’s opinion staff are “furious” about the decision and are “contemplating what action to take, ranging from resigning, quitting the board, or a statement.”
Opinion staff at WaPo are furious about the paper’s endorsement decision. Several are contemplating what action to take, ranging from resigning, quitting the board, or a statement. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t,” one Post opinion employee tells me.
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) October 25, 2024
Meanwhile, CNN’s Democratic Party propagandist Brian Stelter, quoted one editor as saying that the decision represents “an outrageous abdication of responsibility. Democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies when people anticipatorily consent to a fascist’s whims.
A member of the Wash Post editorial department tells me: Bezos’s decision not to endorse is “an outrageous abdication of responsibility. Democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies when people anticipatorily consent to a fascist’s whims.”
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 25, 2024
Meanwhile, the Washington Post Guild issued a statement denouncing the decision, arguing it “undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it” and that readers are already cancelling their subscriptions as a result.
A statement from Post Guild leadership on the Washington Post’s decision to not endorse a presidential candidate pic.twitter.com/fYU7hkr79K
— Washington Post Guild (@PostGuild) October 25, 2024
Meanwhile, columnist Bob Kagan has already announced his resignation from the company, reports the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser.
Update: I’m told that Kagan, the author of the Post’s prescient piece warning of Trump and ‘fascism’, has resigned in the wake of today’s announcement that the Bezos-owned paper will not be endorsing a candidate. https://t.co/UW5K387JaW
— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) October 25, 2024
The Washington Post is not the only major paper to decline to endorse Kamala Harris.
Earlier this week, the far-left Los Angeles Times also confirmed it would not be endorsing a candidate after its own, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked efforts to do so.
In a statement, the Times merely said that “the editorial board endorses selectively, choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations.”
