“Washington Post”: Bezos defends his newspaper’s waiver of election recommendations

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as owner of the Washington Post, defended the renowned US newspaper’s decision not to recommend an election in the final spurt of the race for the White House. The multi-billionaire justified the controversial step in an opinion piece primarily with the American public’s decreased trust in the media. The broadcaster NPR had previously reported that more than 200,000 readers of the traditional newspaper had canceled their subscriptions following the decision.

Bezos assured that he was not pursuing any personal interests at the Washington Post. Rather, the reality is that many people consider the media to be biased. “And those who fight with reality lose.” He will not allow the Washington Post to sink into insignificance and instead let people find out more about poorly researched podcasts and social media posts. In any case, election recommendations from the media would not persuade anyone to vote for a particular candidate. He admitted that the controversial decision was made in the final phase of the election campaign due to “poor planning”.

The Washington Post announced on Friday that it would not recommend either Democrat Kamala Harris or her Republican rival Donald Trump before the presidential election on November 5th. This will also be avoided in future elections. Reporters from the newspaper then reported that a recommendation for today’s Vice President Harris had already been written – but Bezos had decided against publishing it. The Washington Post’s journalists’ advocacy group expressed concern that management appeared to have interfered in editorial matters.

Trump’s anger can harm Bezos’ companies

Although Bezos no longer runs Amazon himself, his assets largely consist of shares in the world’s largest online retailer. He also owns the space company Blue Origin, which relies on government contracts. A Trump administration could make life difficult for his companies. Therefore, Bezos was accused of having ordered the election recommendation not to be given out of fear of financial losses. The fact that Blue Origin boss Dave Limp met with Trump in Florida just a few hours after the decision was announced also added fuel to the fire of criticism. Bezos now wrote that he didn’t know about it beforehand.

The Amazon founder bought the Washington Post, which uncovered the “Watergate” scandal in the 1970s and thus triggered the resignation of President Richard Nixon, in 2013. In the subsequent presidential elections of 2016 and 2020, the newspaper endorsed Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.