200,000 people unsubscribed from Washington Post following decision not to endorse Kamala Harris
In the wake of billionaire owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to block The Washington Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris last week, 200,000 people canceled their digital subscriptions to the news organization by midday Monday, NPR reported—equating to about 8% of the newspaper’s paid circulation.
NPR cited two people at the paper with knowledge of the matter in its report claiming hundreds of thousands of subscribers had canceled on Monday, and noted the number of cancellations was continuing to grow Monday afternoon (the Post declined to comment to NPR).
At least two reporters quit over the decision as well, with editor-at-large and former columnist Robert Kagan saying on CNN quitting was an easy decision as the move was “obviously an effort by Jeff Bezos to try and curry favor with Donald Trump in anticipation of his possible victory.”
News that Bezos decided to block the paper from endorsing Harris broke last Friday, and the paper’s publisher and CEO William Lewis said the decision not to endorse was made in an effort to return “to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates” and “in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds” about who to vote for.
In an op-ed published Monday night, Bezos defended his decision, saying, “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election” and actually “create a perception of bias,” though he did say he “wish(ed) we had made the change earlier than we did” and said the timing was because of “inadequate planning.”
