Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, staunchly defended the newspaper’s leadership decision to cease political endorsements, citing the public’s pervasive distrust of corporate media outlets.
On Monday evening, Bezos released an opinion piece responding to reports that the Post would not back a presidential candidate in the upcoming election, as it did during previous election cycles.
‘I sighed when I found out.’
According to NPR, the paper faced significant criticism for the decision and reportedly lost more than 200,000 subscribers and counting — roughly 8% of its base. Other media outlets, including The Hill, the New Republic, and the Atlantic, torched Bezos for refusing to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Bezos’ op-ed explained the reason behind the decision, stating that the news media “is now the least trusted of all,” according to an annual public survey about trust and reputation.
“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,” Bezos stated. “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.”
Bezos argued that political endorsements from newspapers do not have a measurable impact on election results.
“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,” Bezos continued.
He called ending the paper’s endorsements “a principled decision,” adding that it is “a meaningful step in the right direction.”
The Post was accused of making the decision not to endorse a candidate after an executive with one of Bezos’ companies met with former President Donald Trump. Bezos insisted that he was unaware of the meeting and that there was “no quid pro quo of any kind.” He noted that the decision was made internally and that neither presidential candidate was consulted.
“Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision,” Bezos explained.
He remarked, “But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.”
Bezo stated that he is “not an ideal owner” of the newspaper “when it comes to the appearance of conflict.”
“Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a ‘complexifier’ for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post,” Bezos declared.
“You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other,” he added.
Because of general distrust of the corporate media, the public has turned to “off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen division,” Bezos noted.
The business magnate pledged not to use the Post to push his own interests and stated that he would do everything in his ability to revive the newspaper’s credibility.
“To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course,” Bezos said.
Last week, a New York Times source revealed that Bezos has requested that the paper hire more conservative op-ed writers to expand its audience, Blaze News previously reported.
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