Washington Post loses 2 lakh subscribers amid Harris endorsement row: Report

The Washington Post has lost over 2 lakh subscribers in the wake of the newspaper’s billionaire owner and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, deciding not to endorse any of the two candidates for the November 5 US presidential elections, according to media reports.
On Monday, Bezos defended the Washington Post’s decision, saying that it “right” and “principled”, and it was taken internally, not influenced by either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
The newspaper’s editorial staff were prepared to endorse Democratic nominee Harris, but publisher Will Lewis said on October 25 that the decision to choose a candidate relied on “our readers’ ability to make up their own minds”.
In a report citing sources, the NPR media outlet said that over 2 lakh people had cancelled their digital subscriptions of the Washington Post by Monday afternoon.
Monday’s cancellations represented about 8 per cent of over 2 million paid subscribers, which also include for the newspaper’s print edition.
Not all the cancellations took effect immediately.
Speaking to NPR, Marcus Brauchli, a former Washington Post Executive Editor, said the cancellations were “colossal” and the subscribers did not even know why the no-endorsement decision was taken.
Marty Baron, another former Washington Post Executive Editor, expressed apprehensions about the move that came just weeks before the high-stakes elections.
“There was no substantive serious deliberation with the editorial board of the paper. It was clearly made for other reasons, not for reasons of high principle,” he told NPR.
JEFF BEZOS DEFENDS DECISION
The Washington Post published a “note from our owner” on Monday evening, in which Bezos said, “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. 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 billionaire businessman wrote that he wished the newspaper would end the tradition of endorsing presidential candidates “in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy”.
“I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally,” he said in the note.
Bezos further said that there was no connection between the decision and a meeting between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Blue Origin CEO, Dave Limp, on October 25.
“I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand… The meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false,” he noted.