Washington Post’s US polls non-endorsement costs it 2 lakh subscribers

More than two lakh paid subscribers have cancelled their Washington Post digital subscriptions, and many columnists have resigned following owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block the paper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. This is the first time in 30 years that the publication has not endorsed a presidential candidate in the US polls.  

The loss in its subscribers intensified on Monday and hit about 8 percent of its about 2.5 million subscriptions, NPR reported, anonymously citing two people at the publication. Meanwhile, the series of resignations by its staffers included the exit of editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts on Monday. Both pointed to their reasons in separate letters. 

Hoffman, who won the Pulitzer Prize last week, said: “I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump… I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

As per a report in the Guardian, Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”.

Protest against decision, Harris endorsement was drafted  

Following its decision of non-endorsement, the publication’s editor-at-large Robert Kagan quit the paper, while opinion contributor Michele Norris called it a “terrible mistake,” and criticism came from columnists Eugene Robinson and Ruth Marcus as well.

Former Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, known for their reporting on the Watergate scandal, also issued a statement calling the decision “disappointing”. “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 12 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy.” 

It further said that the Washington Post has rigorously investigated “the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy, and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”

The Washington Post Guild, the publication’s staff union, said in a statement on Friday that it was “deeply concerned” by the paper’s decision, “especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election”.

“The role of an editorial board is to do just this: to share opinions on the news impacting our society and culture and endorse candidates to help guide readers,” said the statement, adding that as per the paper’s reporters and Guild members, the endorsement for Harris was already drafted. It said that the decision of non-endorsement was made by Bezos. 

The Columbia Journalism Review also reported that the Washington Post’s editorial board had already drafted an endorsement for Harris, and the staffers were “stunned” by the non-endorsement decision.

Bezos says endorsements create ‘perception of bias’ 

In a column published on October 25, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis announced that “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”

The publication began endorsing presidential candidates in 1976. Lewis wrote that the non-endorsement decision would be read “as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility”, but “we don’t see it that way”. “We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for.”

A day after the substantial loss in subscribers, Jeff Bezos wrote an op-ed on Tuesday defending the publication’s decision and suggesting that it was a step towards restoring trust in media. “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. The credibility gap can be bridged by independence… By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction.”

Bezos also mentioned that Dave Limp, chief of one of his companies, Blue Origin, met with Trump on the day the publication announced its non-endorsement decision, but “there is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements”.

LA Times also blocked Harris endorsement  

The Los Angeles Times also decided not to endorse a presidential candidate. As per Semafor, its owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the endorsement despite its editorial board’s decision to endorse Harris. 

Following backlash over the decision, Soon-Shiong took to X and said the board was asked to “draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation,” but the “Editorial Board chose to remain silent.”    

As per reports, at least three editorial board members resigned from the publication after the non-endorsement decision, and over 200 staffers sent an open letter to the management, asking for an explanation. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that the LA Times had also lost thousands of subscribers.

The LA Times Union issued a statement on Tuesday, saying that many readers are “angry, upset or confused” and the union is “deeply concerned”. It urged the readers to not cancel their subscriptions. “That subscription underwrites the salaries of hundreds of journalists in our newsroom.” 

“Our member-journalists work every day to keep readers informed during these tumultuous times. A healthy democracy is an informed democracy.” 

Ire of subscribers  

Many X users also pointed to the timing of the decision by the Washington Post and LA Times, while several of their subscribers posted screenshots of their cancellation of subscription.   

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