No quid pro quo at work here: Jeff Bezos on Washington Post’s Kamala Harris snub

Breaking his silence on the Washington Post’s decision to stop endorsing US presidential candidates, owner Jeff Bezos called.

It a move to shore up credibility and asserted that political endorsements “create a perception of bias”. He also clarified that the decision was not a quid pro quo after political experts accused Bezos of prioritising his business agenda, with some alleging that he reached a deal with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, Bezos said the newspaper’s decision to end its 36-year-old practice was a “principled decision”.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement’… What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence,” the Amazon founder wrote.

JEFF BEZOS ON POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT

Last week, Will Lewis, the Washington Post’s publisher, announced that the paper’s editorial board would not be endorsing a presidential candidate in this year’s US election, leading to outrage. The Post’s editorial page had planned to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris, but Bezos took the decision to stop issuing presidential endorsements, the newspaper reported, citing sources.

Hours after the announcement, Donald Trump met executives from Bezos’s aerospace company, Blue Origin, adding fuel to the fire. Bezos, in his column, denied that business interests were behind his decision. “I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision,” Bezos said.

Bezos claimed he was unaware of the meeting between Blue Origin and Trump. “I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision,” he wrote. However, he admitted that the timing of the decision was unfortunate, coming weeks ahead of the November 5 polls, with Trump and Harris locked in a neck-and-neck contest.

“I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy,” Bezos said. Bezos’s statement came hours after three journalists of The Washington Post’s editorial board resigned in protest and thousands of readers cancelled their subscriptions to the newspaper.

‘NEWS ORGANISATIONS LOSING TRUST’
The Amazon founder also underlined that the press was losing its trust among the American public and media houses “must work harder to increase our credibility”. “We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement,” he wrote.

The second-richest man in the world said newspapers like the Washington Post “increasingly talk only to a certain elite”. “Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions,” Bezos said.