The Washington Post’s leadership recently sought a meeting with the Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris, three people familiar with the request said. The campaign did not schedule a meeting, but one of those people told Semafor that Post editors assured the campaign a meeting wouldn’t affect an endorsement. And insiders and outsiders alike assumed the Post would choose the Democrat, as virtually every American newspaper has in the last two elections.
Friday, readers and employees learned otherwise: The Post, following the Los Angeles Times (as first reported by Semafor), will no longer endorse candidates. Post editor Will Lewis wrote that “we know” some readers will take the decision as “an abdication of responsibility,” and many of his employees appear to have done so.
The first prominent journalist, editor-at-large Robert Kagan, resigned Friday in response to the decision, Semafor first reported. But there may be more: “people are shocked, furious, surprised,” said an editorial board member, citing internal discussions around resignation. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t.”
Members of the Post’s editorial board were taken aback on Friday when they learned about the decision from top opinion editor David Shipley. The board had drafted an endorsement of Harris earlier this month, which was sent to the paper’s owner Jeff Bezos. On Friday, NPR reported that opinion staff learned the news from at a tense meeting shortly before Lewis’ announcement
One person familiar with the figures told Semafor that the decision already seemed to be impacting subscriptions. In the 24 hours ending Friday afternoon, about 2,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions, an unusually high number, an employee said. Another email that the Post sent out to subscribers on Friday also prompted a flurry of complaints from readers about the paper’s lack of an endorsement.
The Post didn’t respond to inquiries.
