NON ENDORSEMENT ENDORSES TRUMP
Michael Sainato
Sun 27 October 2024
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.
Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.
Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.
And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.
Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.
Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.
“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
The Post’s publisher Will Lewis, hired by Bezos in January, defended the paper’s owner by claiming the decision to spike the Harris endorsement was his. But that has done little to defuse criticism from within the newspaper’s ranks as well as the wave of subscription cancelations that has met the institution.
Eighteen opinion columnists at the Washington Post signed a dissenting column against the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake”. The paper has already made endorsements this election cycle, including in a US senate seat race in Maryland. The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton when Trump won the presidency in 2016. It endorsed Joe Biden when Trump lost in 2020, despite Trump’s pledges to retaliate against anyone who opposed him.
In their criticism of the Post’s decision on Friday, former and current employees cite the dangers to democracy posed by Trump, who has openly expressed his admiration for authoritarian rule amid his appeals for voters to return him to office.
The former Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story, called the decision “disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process”.
The former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a post on X, “This is cowardice with democracy as its casualty”.
The cartoon team at the paper published a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after its purchase by Bezos.
High-profile readers, including author bestselling author Stephen King as well as former congresswoman and vocal Trump critic Liz Cheney, announced the cancellation of their Washington Post subscriptions with many others in protest.
The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.
Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.
Bezos is the second wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk, who has become a prominent supporter of Trump’s campaign for a second presidency. He bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250m.
In 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, claiming during a podcast interview that he intended to devote more time to Blue Origin.
The New York Times reported Bezos had begun to get more involved in the paper in 2023 as it faced significant financial losses, a stream of employee departures and low morale.
His pick of Lewis as publisher in January seemingly did little to help morale at the paper. Employees and devotees of the paper were worried that Lewis was brought on to the Post despite allegations that he “fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” as a journalist in London, as the New York Times reported.
Nonetheless, in a memo to newsroom leaders in June 2024, Bezos wrote, “The journalistic standards and ethics at the Post will not change.”
The Washington Post is in deep turmoil as Bezos remains silent on non-endorsement
Hadas Gold
Updated Sun 27 October 2024
One day after The Washington Post announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election or in the future, its billionaire owner remains silent as the newspaper’s staff are in turmoil.
Jeff Bezos has so far declined to comment on the situation, even as his own paper’s journalists reported that it was Bezos who ultimately spiked the planned endorsement. A source with knowledge told CNN on Friday that an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris had been drafted before it was squashed.
In the last 24 hours, at least one editor has resigned, and high-profile Post staffers have publicly expressed their dismay as many in the paper’s Opinion section are furious over how the situation was handled.
For many current and former staffers of the venerable newspaper, the timing of the announcement was highly suspect and has led them to believe Bezos’s business interests influenced the decision.
Former Post executive editor Marty Baron, who led the paper under Bezos during the first Trump administration called the decision an act of “cowardice.”
“To declare a moment of high principle, only 11 days before the election that is just highly suspect that is just not to be believed that this was a matter of principle at this point,” Baron told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday morning.
Trump has threatened Bezos “continually,” Baron noted. But when Baron was in charge of the newspaper, Bezos “resisted that pressure” and he was “proud” and “grateful” for that leadership.
“Bezos has other commercial interests, a big stake and Amazon, he has a space company called Blue Origin,” Baron said. “Trump has threatened to pursue his political enemies and he rewards his friends and he punishes his perceived political and think there’s no other explanation for what’s happening right now.”
Baron said Post publisher Will Lewis’s defense of the non-endorsement was “laughable,” noting that the Post has endorsed in other races.
“If their philosophy is readers can make up their own minds on the big issues that they face in this democracy, then don’t run any editorials,” Baron said. “But the fact is they only decided not to run an editorial in this one instance 11 days before the election.”
In a statement to CNN on Saturday, Lewis pushed back on reports about Bezos’s role in the endorsement decision.
“Reporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate,” Lewis said. “He was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft. As Publisher, I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.”
Several current Post journalists told CNN they have no problem with the editorial board not endorsing in any situation, with some actively agreeing with the decision. But they all found the timing of the announcement extremely troubling.
“Deciding that now, right before an election, puts us in a lose-lose position: cowards for caving, or whining over not endorsing Harris, which the Trump campaign is already trying to use to undermine us,” one Post journalist told CNN. Another told CNN that “people are angry and feel like senior managers are undermining the journalism.”
Others expressed deep concern that a wave of readers reacting to the news have cancelled their subscriptions, something that will directly impact the newsroom’s ability to function.
Robert Kagan, a Post columnist and opinion editor-at-large who had been with the paper for 25 years, publicly resigned on Friday as a direct result of the non-endorsement.
“This is obviously an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory,” Kagan told CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront on Friday. “Trump has threatened to go after Bezos’ business. Bezos runs one of the largest companies in America. They have tremendously intricate relations with federal government. They depend on the federal government.”
On Friday, Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, the space exploration company owned by Bezos, hours after the Post announced its decision Friday. The company has a $3.4 billion contract with the federal government to build a new spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the moon’s surface.
Trump advisers and supporters have been crowing since both the Post and the Los Angeles Times’ billionaire owners stepped in to prevent their papers from endorsing Harris.
A post on X by a Post reporter noting that Trump met with Blue Origin executives the same day the Post declined to endorse Harris was reposted by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung along with multiple “love” emojis.
Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller also pounced on the non-endorsement, writing: “You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse.”
Earlier in the week, the Trump campaign used the Los Angeles Times’ non-endorsement in a fundraising email, calling it a “humiliating blow” for Harris.
Other staffers said the decision not to endorse will ultimately harm American democracy, even though Lewis claimed in his note to readers that the move should not be seen as a “tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another.”
In a joint statement, legendary Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame called the decision “surprising and disappointing,” noting the timing of the announcement “ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
A group of 17 Post opinion columnists also published a statement Friday evening, criticizing their own newspaper’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election as a “terrible mistake.”
“The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake,” they wrote. “It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years.”
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Washington Post Erupts in Civil War As Jeff Bezos Censors Its Kamala Harris Endorsement
Corbin Bolies
Fri 25 October 2024
Jeff Bezos and Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Washington Post was in turmoil Friday after its owner Jeff Bezos ordered its journalists to censor its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
His move was revealed by the newspaper’s own reporters—as one of its star writers, policy expert Robert Kagan, quit and its legendary former editor Marty Baron erupted in rage.
The billionaire Amazon founder stopped the publication of an endorsement of the Democratic candidate which its editorial board had already written, the paper reported.
Within hours Kagan, a veteran editor-at-large quit in disgust, Semafor reported. The dramatic move was called “cowardice” by its Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-editor, Baron. One of the paper’s star reporters, Ashley Parker, called it “a new type of October Surprise.”
The sudden move 11 days before the election caused shockwaves, and came despite the paper endorsing local candidates. It plunges The Washington Post into the same kind of civil war which is already engulfing The Los Angeles Times whose billionaire owner also stopped a Harris endorsement.
Jeff Bezos directly intervened to stop The Washington Post publishing an endorsement of Kamala Harris, the paper's own reporters revealed Friday.
The paper’s CEO Will Lewis—not its owner, Bezos—announced the endorsement ban in a note to readers, saying it was an attempt to “provide through the newsroom non-partisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds.”
“We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
It came days after The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board was blocked from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris by its billionaire CEO Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, plunging the newsroom into chaos over its owner’s meddling in its editorial affairs.
In D.C., Lewis said the paper was “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” citing the paper’s distant past, which it abstained from presidential endorsements.
But that era ended in 1976 when it endorsed Democrat Jimmy Carter for president, which Lewis said was for “understandable reasons.” “But we had it right before that, and this is what we are going back to,” Lewis wrote. (The Post last abstained from endorsing a presidential candidate in 1988, saying at the time it could not reach “a threshold of confidence in and commitment” in a candidate that year.)
Lewis' note set off an explosive reaction, led by Baron, the highest-profile living former leader of the paper of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” Baron, who shepherded the paper during Donald Trump’s first presidency wrote on X. “Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
According to NPR, which first broke the news of the Post’s decision, opinion editor David Shipley informed staff on Friday morning about the decision. Opinion among staff, according to NPR, was “uniformly negative.”
“The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis—not from the Editorial Board itself—makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial,” the Post’s union leadership said in a statement.
“According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers. This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.”
CEO Will Lewis says The Washington Post will not endorse a presidential candidate.
Lewis’ nearly yearlong tenure at the Post has been marred by controversy after controversy. Initially welcomed by Post employees as an affable changemaker with ambitions to reinvent the paper, the staff turned on him after he booted the paper’s executive editor, Sally Buzbee, for two former colleagues; reportedly tried to block the paper from reporting on his alleged role in covering up a U.K. phone-hacking scandal; insinuated the paper’s editorial staff was responsible for its business failings; and nearly installed a former U.K. colleague whose ethically questionable reporting practices eventually came to light.
Lewis’ decision came days after Soon-Shiong blocked the Times’ impending endorsement of Harris. Soon-Shiong claimed he allowed the paper to present analyses of the “POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate” to present “clear and non-partisan information to its readers,” but the editorial board refused.
Soon-Shiong seemed to revel in Lewis’ decision, posting a screenshot of the NPR story that showed Lewis following his lead without any comment.
Ex-WaPo Editor: This Is a Straight Bezos-Trump ‘Quid Pro Quo’
Lily Mae Lazarus
Sat 26 October 2024
Robert Kagan, Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos
The Washington Post’s outgoing editor-at-large and longtime columnist has made explosive claims that its owner Jeff Bezos struck a deal with Donald Trump in order to kill the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Robert Kagan, who resigned from his position on Friday after more than two decades at the publication, told the Daily Beast that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazon founder killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal.
“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people,” he said on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
Robert Kagan (R).
The alleged collusion between Bezos and Trump, Kagan says, “is just the beginning,” adding that if the former president wins a second term, there will be “a lot of self censorship [in the media] and a lot of changing course just to be sure that they’re not going to be punished.”
Kagan became a vocal anti-Trump voice in 2016, writing about the dangers of authoritarianism in the event of a second Trump presidency, and about how the former president could jeopardize American democracy.
In 2023, Kagan warned about Trump’s potential influence on the media, saying, “Media owners will discover that a hostile and unbridled president can make their lives unpleasant in all sorts of ways.”
Bezos knows first hand the consequences of criticizing the former president. The Post’s 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton is widely thought to have led to him losing out on a $10 billion cloud computing defense contract awarded by the Trump administration. And, throughout the former president’s first term, he repeatedly attacked Bezos and Amazon, accusing them of scamming the United States Postal Service.
“This is what we have to look forward to,” Kagan said. “All Trump has to do is threaten the corporate chiefs who run these organizations with real financial loss, and they will bend the knee.”
Donald Trump speaks with Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, and Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Amazon.
While the billionaire tech mogul did not buckle to Trump’s threats in years past, Kagan said that Bezos’ shock decision to pull the Harris endorsement had “obviously been in the works for some time,” describing his formerly hands-off approach to owning the Post as “a lot of Kabuki.”
“We now know what Bezos’ intention was, therefore we now know why he hired Will Lewis,” he continued. “We were the ones who were naive in thinking that there was anything else going on here.”
Lewis, who is the newspaper’s publisher, claimed that the Post’s last-minute nixing of its endorsement had nothing to do with its owner, and was instead because, “I do not believe in presidential endorsements.” His claim contradicts reports from sources that Lewis “fought tooth and nail” to keep the endorsement.
According to Kagan, “all the facts” lead in the direction of Bezos attempting to transform the Post into something akin to The Wall Street Journal, a center right “anti-anti-Trump editorial slant,” with Lewis by his side.
“Some journalists will stick around for that. Some will leave. If they leave, they can be replaced,” he said.
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