Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said he’s still “very proud” of his decision to stop his paper from endorsing Kamala Harris for president, saying it was the “right decision.”
Bezos made the comment during a conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday. In October, the Amazon founder spearheaded the decision to not have WaPo’s editorial board endorse Harris over Donald Trump — marking the first time in 36 years the paper didn’t endorse a presidential candidate.
“We just decided that, you know, it wasn’t going to help,” Bezos said. “It wasn’t going to influence the election either way.”
The billionaire pointed to polling that showed public trust in mainstream media has cratered. An October Gallup poll found America’s trust in the media is at an all-time low, with only 31% of respondents saying they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence the news was being reported accurately.
If the Post were to endorse Harris, Bezos noted that the “plusses were small” and that it would add to a “perception of bias.” Their non-endorsement of Harris was skewered by many media reporters and readers, with former executive editor Marty Baron calling it “cowardice.”
“Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos (and others),” Baron said. “Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
Bezos pushed back on that criticism, saying it was “not cowardly.” “You can’t do the wrong thing because you’re worried about bad PR,” he added.
Looking ahead, Bezos said WaPo will continue to “very aggressively” cover the presidency during Trump’s second term — and when asked about Trump’s hatred of the press, Bezos said he’s aiming to “talk him out of it.”
