debut: 2/16/17
37,661 runs
Jeff Bezos defends Washington Post non-endorsement
The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, in his first public comments since igniting uproar last week over his decision to withhold the venerable newspaper’s endorsement in the presidential race, defended the move in a rare op-ed published Monday evening by the Post.“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, wrote. “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.”The statement came hours after three members of the Post’s editorial board resigned over the decision not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris and thousands of readers cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper. High-profile Post staffers have also publicly expressed their dismay over how the situation was handled and raised questions over the reason for the eleventh-hour decision.
Hours after Post publisher Will Lewis announced Friday the decision to not endorse in the upcoming election or in the future, Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, a Bezos-founded spacefaring company. In his op-ed, Bezos addressed allegations he made the decision to withhold the endorsement to curry favor with Trump, saying he had no advance knowledge of the meeting.
The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, in his first public comments since igniting uproar last week over his decision to withhold the venerable newspaper’s endorsement in the presidential race, defended the move in a rare op-ed published Monday evening by the Post.“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, wrote. “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.”The statement came hours after three members of the Post’s editorial board resigned over the decision not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris and thousands of readers cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper. High-profile Post staffers have also publicly expressed their dismay over how the situation was handled and raised questions over the reason for the eleventh-hour decision.
Hours after Post publisher Will Lewis announced Friday the decision to not endorse in the upcoming election or in the future, Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, a Bezos-founded spacefaring company. In his op-ed, Bezos addressed allegations he made the decision to withhold the endorsement to curry favor with Trump, saying he had no advance knowledge of the meeting.
- edited -