More than 200,000 subscribers have left ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

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This is INSKEEP. There was a revelation about Musk in The Washington Post on the same day as the endorsement announcement.

BARON: I wouldn’t. And I’m opposed to that. Look, I mean, the Post continues to do extraordinary work in its news department. Great columnists are also there. But in the news department, they continue to do investigative work. Investigative work is important to our democracy. I hope the public will continue to support that.

InSKEEP: Can Jeff Bezos’ Influence on the Amazon Cloud-Computing-Services Agreement During the Trump Administration?

More than 200,000 people canceled their digital subscriptions by noon Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancels take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancelations continued to increase Monday.

INSKEEP: I should note another detail here. The representatives of Blue Origin had a meeting with the president after the decision was made. If Trump wins office again, would he have much influence over Bezos’ various business ventures?

Blue Origin has a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA. During the Trump administration, Amazon sued the government after alleging it had blocked a $10 billion cloud-computing-services contract with the Pentagon over the then-president’s ire about coverage in the Post, which Bezos owns personally.

Beron: It’s a change. Look, I mean, during my time there, ever since Bezos acquired the post in October of 2013, he really stood behind us. And I was enormously grateful for that because he endured tremendous pressure from Donald Trump during his first campaign, and then during his presidency. Trump tried to influence Amazon’s business in a number of ways, and even tried to increase postal rates in order to make sure that it didn’t go to Amazon. I was very grateful for Bezos’s support of us and his defense of us. I see this as a betrayal of the principles he used to practice when I was the editor of the Post.

“If this decision had been made three years ago, two years ago, maybe even a year ago, that would’ve been fine,” Baron said. It’s a good decision. But this was made within a couple of weeks of the election, and there was no substantive serious deliberation with the editorial board of the paper. It was clear that it was made for other reasons.

It’s INSKEEP. The publisher is allowed to weigh in on endorsement, and they often do at many newspapers that make endorsements. Do you think that Bezos’ fingerprints are on this?

Did the post owner Jeff Bezos make this call? The publisher issued a denial and it seemed to imply that Bezos did not. But The Washington Post’s reporters, who operate separately, are reporting based on four sources that, in fact, Bezos did make the call. We now have Marty Baron with us. He worked for Bezos while he was editor of the Post. Good morning, sir.

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

He says that he doesn’t plan on giving up on The Post, where he has been for 42 years. He writes of being launched on several projects, including “the expanded effort to support press freedom around the world.”

Shipley held a contentious meeting Monday with scores of opinion section staffers, who posed tough questions to the editorial page chief, including appeals for Bezos to address them. As recently as last week, according to a person present, Shipley said he sought to talk Bezos out of his decision, adding “I failed.”

The officials of Bezos’ Blue Origin met with Trump a few hours after the decision became public, because they were afraid of what he would do.

Lewis was brought on by Bezos at the beginning of the year because he had a good reputation with conservative audiences, and he had appealed to them successfully in the past.

Lewis had been editor of the Telegraph in the U.K., which is considered closely allied with the right wing of the Conservative party. He was the publisher and chief executive of the Wall Street Journal after working for Murdoch as a top executive in London. He was a consultant for Boris Johnson when he was a British Prime Minister.

Deriving Our Voice from the Washington Post: A Tease Endorsement of the Bezos-Adviced Donald Trump Campaign

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman added in his letter to Editorial Page Editor David Shipley, which was obtained by NPR. I find it absurd that we’ve lost our voice.

The Washington Post’s editorials have been a beacon of light for decades, signalling hope to dissidents, political prisoners, and the voiceless, according to a letter by the editorial board member. We made sure that the world was aware of the truth when there were victims of repressive regimes.

The other writer is David Hoffman, who accepted a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing on Thursday, the day before Bezos’ decision was made public. Pulitzer judges recognized him “for a compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age, and how they can be fought.”

Molly Roberts warned of the consequences of the eleventh hour decision to stay quiet rather than publish the editorial endorsing Harris. “Donald Trump is not yet a dictator,” she wrote in a statement she posted on social media. He comes closer to us.

Three of the top 10 viewed stories on the Post’s website Sunday were articles written by Post staffers outraged by Bezos’ decision. It was the humor columnist that endorsed Harris for president in the top piece. More than 174,000 people read it online.

Even at the rival New York Times, with a much higher circulation level, a significant protest might register in the low thousands. The Post’s net gain of 4,000 subscribers was praised by the publisher.

“It is a way to send a message to ownership but it shoots you in the foot if you care about the kind of in-depth, quality journalism like the Post produces,” he said. “There aren’t many organizations that can do what the Post does. The depth and range of reporting by the Post’s journalists is among the best.

Source: Over 200,000 subscribers flee ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

Why was the Mass Cancellation a Disaster? Marcus Brauchli, a former Post editor, told NPR “It’s a mystery to me”

Brauchli says the mass cancellations point to the ways in which people feel about certain issues. “This gave people a reason to act on this mood.”

Few people inside the paper credit that rationale given the timing, however, just days before a neck-and-neck race between Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Marcus Brauchli, a former Post executive editor, told NPR that it was a huge number. People don’t know why the decision was made. We basically know the decision was made but we don’t know what led to it.”