Washington
The Washington Post bleeds subscriptions as Bezos responds to endorsement criticism – Poynter
The exodus at The Washington Post continues. Both from staff and readers. Two more Post writers have resigned from the editorial board in protest of owner Jeff Bezos blocking the board from writing an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.
And in what is an absolutely stunning number, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reported the Post had more than 200,000 digital subscriptions canceled as of midday Monday. That would be about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes the print product. That 200,000 number is expected to rise.
Meanwhile, Molly Roberts and Pulitzer Prize winner David E. Hoffman both announced Monday that they have resigned from the Post’s editorial board. (Both will remain at the paper.)
In a lengthy post on X, Roberts wrote, “To be very clear, the decision not to endorse this election was not the editorial board’s. It was (you can read the reporting) Jeff Bezos’s. By registering my dissent, I don’t intend to impugn the conduct of any of my colleagues, all of whom were put in nearly impossible positions.”
Roberts would add, “I’m resigning from The Post editorial board because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is about as morally clear as it gets. Worse, our silence is exactly what Donald Trump wants: for the media, for us, to keep quiet.”
In his resignation from the editorial board letter, Hoffman wrote how, for decades, Post editorials have been “a beacon of light, signaling hope to dissidents, political prisoners and the voiceless.” After more examples, Hoffman wrote, “Under our watch at The Post, no one would be lost in silence.”
He then added, “Until Friday, I assumed we would apply the same values and principles to an editorial endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump. I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”
This has turned into a public relations nightmare for the Post.
CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “Thousands of perturbed and disappointed customers continue to cancel their Washington Post subscriptions as a result of Jeff Bezos’s decision to block the publication from endorsing Kamala Harris. Post leaders are shook-up — but unable to stop the proverbial bleeding since Bezos is the one in charge.”
As I wrote in Monday’s newsletter, one can understand readers being upset and looking for some form of protest. The easiest is canceling their subscription to the Post. But that likely only hurts Post staffers, who are just as angry as the readers. Other than folks saying rotten things about him, the person behind the decision to not endorse — owner Jeff Bezos — isn’t going to really feel the impact of canceled subscriptions, even if they run into the hundreds of thousands. (Although, I must admit that number is way more than I could have imagined.)
The resignations and public objections by journalists at the Post do, however, help take the onus away from the paper and put it squarely where it belongs: on Bezos. The Post’s reputation might be taking a hit over this, but the journalists at the papers are doing their best to say how much they disapprove of the decision and, perhaps, helping the newsroom and editorial board maintain some integrity.
And Hoffman made it clear that he is not giving up on the Post.
In an interview with the Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia, conducted before Hoffman announced his resignation from the editorial board, he said, “It’s extremely difficult for us because we built this institution. But we can’t give up on our American democracy or The Post.”
In a column over the weekend, Washington Post opinion columnist Dana Milbank wrote that he understands the anger from readers and he shares it. But he’s not quitting and he hopes readers don’t quit on the Post either.
He wrote, “Of course, if Friday’s non-endorsement announcement is followed by other demands from our owner that we bend the knee to Trump, that’s a different matter. If this turns out to be the beginning of a crackdown on our journalistic integrity — if journalists are ordered to pull their punches, called off sensitive stories or fired for doing their jobs — my colleagues and I will be leading the calls for Post readers to cancel their subscriptions, and we’ll be resigning en masse.”
Milbank went on to write, “ … for the past nine years, I’ve been labeling Trump a racist and a fascist, adding more evidence each week — and not once have I been stifled. I’ve never even met nor spoken to Bezos. The moment I’m told I can no longer report the truth will be the moment to find other work. Until then, I’ll keep writing. I hope you’ll keep reading.”
But, The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin reported that in an “intense” meeting involving Post opinion editor David Shipley and staff on Monday, one staffer said the damage done was “incalculable.”
Mullin also reported that Bezos had reservations about an endorsement for president as far back as September, but that Shipley was trying to get Bezos to move off that position.
After several days of upheaval, Bezos finally responded to all the criticism in an op-ed for the Post published Monday evening.
Bezos wrote, “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.’ 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.”
That feels like a lame excuse. By that standard, a paper should never write an editorial about anything.
The timing of the announcement, Bezos admitted, could have been better, writing, “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.
Bezos also wrote, “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. It was made entirely internally.”
Bezos admitted that Dave Limp, the chief executive of Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin, met with Trump on the day that Post announced there would be no endorsement.
Bezos wrote, “I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.”
Bezos wrote that he is not the ideal owner of the Post. That’s because executives at his companies, such as Amazon and Blue Origin, are always meeting with government officials. However, Bezos defended his ownership of the Post, writing, “I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasn’t happened.”
There’s much more to Bezos’ op-ed and I encourage you to read it in full. But I doubt that his words will placate angry readers or tamp down the resentment inside the Post.
This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.
Watch Oregon State celebrate its win against Washington State
Oregon State players and fans celebrate their 10-7 victory against Washington State on Nov. 1 in Corvallis.
Oregon State football has finally reached its final game of the season.
After a long, tumultuous few months, the Beavers (2-9) have the chance to finish on a high. OSU is travelling to Pullman, Wash., to take on Washington State (5-6) in the one, and only, official Pac-12 Conference game of the year.
“It’s the last time this group of people is ever going to be together again,” OSU interim head coach Robb Akey said. “That’s it.”
For numerous Beavers, Saturday’s contest against the Cougars will be the last college football game of their careers. For some, it’ll be their last in Oregon State uniforms and for others, they’ll be back next season.
But Akey said it’s valuable for these players to be able to close out their careers in the fashion they are. A rivalry game, a conference matchup against a team Oregon State’s already beaten this season.
“It gives us the opportunity to be Pac-12 champions,” Akey said. “That means a hell of a lot, in my opinion.”
A Pac-12 rematch
Oregon State hosted Washington State on Nov. 1 at Reser Stadium. The Beavers, at the time, had just rattled off their first win over FCS program Lafayette and were sitting at 1-7 through a bye week.
The Beavers came out on top in a low-scoring, dramatic affair, 10-7. It was Akey’s second win in as many games in charge and a high point of the Oregon State season.
It wasn’t technically classified as a Pac-12 contest, but rather just a typical regular-season matchup. Regardless, the win meant that OSU had pulled off two wins in a row for the first time in 2025. But those are the only two wins the team has garnered so far.
Having the opportunity to play, and beat, the Cougars again is exciting for Akey and the Beavers.
“It’s a cool situation that you get to go about. So we’ve tried to approach it as a cool situation,” Akey said. “You’ve got two teams that are going to know each other pretty well and two teams that fought their tails off against each other the last time they were together.”
WSU is 1-1 since the the earlier meeting. The Cougars beat Louisiana Tech, 28-3 at home, then travelled to Harrisonburg, Va., where they lost to a ranked James Madison squad, 24-20.
OSU is 0-2, with losses at home to Sam Houston (21-17) and at Tulsa (31-14).
On the season, Oregon State averages over 356 yards of offense to Washington State’s 308 yards. The Beavers outrank the Cougars in nearly all significant offensive statistic categories, especially in the run game.
Defensively, the script is almost completely flipped. Washington State gives up nearly 70 fewer yards per game, over eight points per game less, and are superior in nearly all significant categories.
It presents the opportunity for a fun, crazy contest, Akey said.
“They’ve got a good defense, they play well,” the coach said. “It’s got the makings to be a hell of a game.”
Two teams looking to end the season with a smile
Neither Oregon State nor Washington State has delivered the season it had expected back in August. Both teams have undergone one of the rockiest, unpredictable conference realignment transitions in the NCAA to remain with the Pac-12.
For Akey, some of the main takeaways from this season are off the field.
“Life deals you adversity, and you deal with it,” Akey said. “What I will take from this is these players. We’ve built some cool relationships with them and those are going to last forever.”
And for the players, it’s one last chance to enjoy this specific group’s company on the field together.
“It’s the last chance they’re going to get to play together,” Akey said. “They’ve spent a ton of time working … and it didn’t play out the way that everybody had hoped that it would.”
Since his inaugural press conference, Akey has has emphasized that he’s in Corvallis to help the Beavers have fun, smile and produce a season they can look back on and be proud of and enjoy. He said this week that he believes this is a great opportunity for that.
“They get one last chance to be able to compete together and to fight for one another,” Akey said. “That’s an unbelievable deal.”
Landon Bartlett covers high school sports and Oregon State for the Statesman Journal. He can be reached at lbartlett@salem.gannett.com or on X or Instagram @bartlelo.
Washington
Lawsuit blames Tesla design flaws for crash that killed Washington state woman injured her husband – WTOP News
Design flaws caused a Tesla Model 3 to suddenly accelerate out of control before it crashed into a utility pole…
Design flaws caused a Tesla Model 3 to suddenly accelerate out of control before it crashed into a utility pole and burst into flames, killing a woman and severely injuring her husband, a lawsuit filed in federal court alleges.
Another defect with the door handle design thwarted bystanders who were trying to rescue the driver, Jeff Dennis, and his wife, Wendy, from the car, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Wendy Dennis died in the Jan. 7, 2023, crash in Tacoma, Washington. Jeff Dennis suffered severe leg burns and other injuries, according to the lawsuit.
Messages left Monday with plaintiffs’ attorneys and Tesla were not immediately returned.
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages in California since the Dennis’ 2018 Model 3 was designed and manufactured there. Tesla also had its headquarters in California at the time before later moving to Texas.
Among other financial claims, the lawsuit seeks wrongful death damages for both Jeff Dennis and his late wife’s estate. It asks for a jury trial.
Tesla doors have been at the center of several crash cases because the battery powering the unlocking mechanism shuts off in case of a crash, and the manual releases that override that system are known for being difficult to find.
Last month, the parents of two California college students killed in a Tesla crash sued the carmaker, saying the students were trapped in the vehicle as it burst into flames because of a design flaw that prevented them from opening the doors. In September, federal regulators opened an investigation into complaints by Tesla drivers of problems with stuck doors.
Jeff and Wendy Dennis were running errands when the Tesla suddenly accelerated for at least five seconds. Jeff Dennis swerved to miss other vehicles before the car hit the utility pole and burst into flames, the lawsuit says.
The automatic emergency braking system did not engage before hitting the pole, the lawsuit alleges, even though it is designed to apply the brakes when a frontal collision is considered unavoidable.
Bystanders couldn’t open the doors because the handles do not work from the outside because they also rely on battery power to operate.. The doors also couldn’t be opened from inside because the battery had shut off because of the fire, and a manual override button is hard to find and use, the lawsuit alleges.
The heat from the fire prevented bystanders from getting close enough to try to break out the windows.
Defective battery chemistry and battery pack design unnecessarily increased the risk of a catastrophic fire after the impact with the pole, the lawsuit alleges.
___
Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.
Copyright
© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
Washington
Alaska Airlines comments on holiday-week disruption concerns due to Washington pipeline leak
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska Airlines said it does not expect any disruption in operation through this holiday week because of a leak in a pipeline in Washington, which is raising concern it could impact jet fuel supplies at Seattle and Portland airports.
“We are working to mitigate a potential impact from the Olympic Pipeline fuel leak,” Alaska Airlines wrote to Alaska’s News Source Sunday. “To ensure our scheduled service is maintained without significant disruption, we have implemented contingency plans.”
The contingency plans include tankering in fuel on inbound flights to Seattle, and tech stops on certain routes to conserve fuel. It’s also maintaining and expanding its trucking operation to bring in additional fuel, the airline said.
The airline said tech stops are “a stop at an airport along a flight’s route to add more fuel onboard. The passengers stay onboard.”
The Associated Press is reporting that officials say Portland International Airport does not expect any problems because it can bring in jet fuel on a barge.
The pipeline system has been down since Monday, but there have been intermittent shutoffs since Nov. 11, the Associated Press reported.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.
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