For the first time in decades, The Washington Post will not endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election, the newspaper’s publisher announced Friday, a decision that sparked widespread outrage among the paper’s staffers.
“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Post publisher Will Lewis said in a statement. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post reported the decision not to endorse was made by the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, citing two sources briefed on the matter.
The Post’s editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris and it was ready to be approved by its board, but the draft was never presented, a person with knowledge of the matter told CNN.
“Many on the editorial board are surprised and angry,” the person said.
The Post has endorsed a presidential candidate in every election since the 1980s. In his statement, Lewis referred to the Editorial Board’s past decisions to not endorse a […]
Jeff Bezos not only betrayed the WP mission and permanently damaged its institutional reputation but also left subscriber-voters in the dark by overriding the endorsement of Kamala Harris by the editorial staff.