More than 200,000 Washington Post readers have reportedly canceled their subscriptions in the three days since the Jeff Bezos-owned publication decided against endorsing a presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
The shocking number — as of midday Monday — is about 8% of 2.5 million paid digital subscribers as the Beltway broadsheet faces ongoing fallout over its decision, NPR reported on Monday.
Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, downplayed the importance of newspaper endorsements in an op-ed published by the paper Monday night.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos 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 handful of high-level staffers have stepped down since Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis announced on Friday the outlet would not endorse either candidate in the Nov. 5 election nor in any future presidential race.
“We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote, who has stressed he made the controversial call and notBezos.
But the outcry among staffers and liberal readers of the newspaper have been swift.
Opinion section staffers Robert Kagan, David Hoffman and Molly Roberts have all resigned in the aftermath.
“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman wrote in his resignation letter, which was posted on X.
Former executive editor of the newspaper, Marty Baron, also called the non-endorsement an act of “cowardice.”
An endorsement for Harris, the Democratic nominee, over GOP nominee, ex-President Donald Trump, was drafted by the editorial page staffers before the newspaper erred against making a pick, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
With Post wires