Jeff Bezos says ‘no quid pro quo of any kind’ in decision to end Washington Post endorsements

Jeff Bezos is defending his decision as owner of The Washington Post to end the newspaper’s tradition of endorsing candidates for president. In a column in the Post published Monday evening, Bezos said “no quid pro quo of any kind” was at work in the call last week to spike an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder who bought the Post in 2013, has come under intense backlash in the days following the announcement, which came just 11 days before the election between Harris and former President Donald Trump.

NPR reported that more than 200,000 digital subscribers have canceled their Post subscriptions, representing about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers. Two columnists have also resigned from the paper and two writers have stepped down from the editorial board.

Former Post editor Marty Baron called Bezos’ and the paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” adding that it was “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” Baron also said Trump will see the move as an opportunity to “further intimidate” Bezos.

Bezos, citing poor public opinion of journalists and the media when it comes to trust and reputation, said the newspaper must increase its credibility.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” he wrote. “No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.’ None. 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.”

Bezos said he wishes the decision to not endorse any candidate had been made sooner, “in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.” And he said the timing of a meeting last week between Dave Limp, CEO of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company, and Trump was scheduled without Bezos’ knowledge.

Bezos admitted that when it comes to the appearance of conflict, he is “not an ideal owner” of the Post.

“Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials,” he wrote. “I once wrote that The Post is a ‘complexifier’ for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.”