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.