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Democrats erupted in outraged last week, after the Washington Post, the 4th largest daily newspaper in the US, announced that it will not be endorsing a presidential candidate this year, or at any time in the future.
Now billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, has spoken out in an op-ed defending the move by the liberal publication.
“The Post’s editorial staff was prepared to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris before publisher Will Lewis wrote instead that it would be better for readers to make up their own minds,” the Washington Post reported.
The paper’s Democrat readers reacted in fury and started cancelling their subscriptions. The NPR reported:
More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of roughly 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.
Tuesday evening, Bezos published an op-ed in the Washington Post, titled, “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.”
In the op-ed, Bezos acknowledged that no one trusts the media anymore, and explained that by making endorsements for candidates, they confirm their bias, which is the reason reason they are no longer trusted.
Bezos wrote:
In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.
Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.
Likewise with newspapers. 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. 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. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
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. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.
I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally.
Bezos also whined that since the mainstream media is no longer trusted, 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.”
“While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight,” he declared.
From Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post. https://t.co/FjQh93KwVw
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) October 29, 2024
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