NPR says a growing number of current and former journalists at The Washington Post are criticizing the legacy newspaper after owner Jeff Bezos decided to withhold a planned editorial endorsement for president for the first time in 36 years.
“The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake,” said a joint column that had been signed by 17 Post columnists as of Saturday afternoon.
‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for first time since 1980s
The opinion piece, published on the paper’s website, argued that presidential endorsements serve as a reminder to readers of what the Post stands for. It declared that the paper cannot retreat from the its responsibility to stand up for core democratic values threatened by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Its editorials have repeatedly warned that Trump is unfit for office.
“An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution,” the column added. It was signed by some of the Post‘s most prominent writers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson, David Ignatius and Jennifer Rubin.
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NPR first broke news of Bezos’ decision. The column arrived just hours after publisher William Lewis made the announcement Friday afternoon. In his own opinion piece, Lewis explained that the Post did not routinely make endorsements until 1976. He said it was time to return to that tradition and support “readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
The Post had drafted an editorial endorsement for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris earlier this month. But it was ultimately scrapped by the paper’s billionaire owner Bezos, also the Amazon founder, the Post reported. The Post’s revelation came just days after it was reported that the Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the paper’s Editorial Board from endorsing Harris.
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