Employees outraged at ‘chicken-shit’ move that breaks 30-year precedent, alleging Jeff Bezos quashed Harris support
There was uproar and outrage among the Washington Post’s current and former staffers and other notable figures in the world of American media after the newspaper’s leaders on Friday chose to not endorse any candidate in the US presidential election.
The newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced on Friday that for the first time in over 30 years, the paper’s editorial board would not be endorsing a candidate in this year’s presidential election, nor in future presidential elections.
After the news broke, reactions came flooding in, with people criticizing the decision, which, according to some staffers and reporters, was allegedly made by the Post’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Karen Attiah, a columnist for the Washington Post who writes a weekly newsletter, called the decision an “absolute stab in the back”.
On the other hand, journalists are among the most informed and aware professionals out there, and these endorsements are part of their editorials, not part of their factual articles. By making an endorsement, the editorials board is sharing a perspective, and perhaps that should be a lens through which to understand their reporting. That’s up to the individual reader - on that note however, I’m concerned about how blurry readers have become on news articles vs. opinions. Fox News has been the vanguard on that, and the rest of the internet was quick to follow.
Nevertheless, I think sharing an editorial perspective as a news organization is better than Supreme Court Justices pretending to be unbiased during their Senate confirmation hearings.
What about if the FBI spikes the 4500 claims of sexual assault to smooth that process??