‘Frightened of Donald Trump’: Bezos Said Kowtowing to Fellow Billionaire
Newspaper continues to see ire due to decision to ditch Harris endorsement
Billionaire Jeff Bezos is coming under continued condemnation for his reported decision to kill a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris by the storied newspaper he owns, The Washington Post.
The Post, on Friday, delivered bombshell news that the newspaper would abstain from backing a presidential candidate, just days before this year’s elections.
And increasingly, Bezos — the founder and executive chairman of online retail giant Amazon — is under scrutiny for the decision for The Washington Post to refrain from endorsing a candidate for president for the first time in 36 years.
Bezos bought The Post in 2013, a storied newspaper since its reporters exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon more than a half-century ago.
He’s coming under intense criticism for the decision to forego an endorsement ahead of such a momentous election.
“There can be a lot of debate on whether you should have a presidential endorsement or not, and a lot of newspapers are reconsidering it and that’s a fine thing,” said longtime journalist and podcaster Karaoke Swisher. “But The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times this week really had a major fail by quashing endorsements of Kamala Harris because their billionaire owners changed their mind at the last moment and pulled it on what are supposed to be independent boards.
“Editorial boards, and especially Jeff Bezos —who I think is frightened of Donald Trump —and pulled a Kamala Harris endorsement that was already written,” she added. “I started my job — my career — in the mailroom of The Washington Post. It’s an enormous embarrassment, and the fine people at The Washington Post are furious and it’s a real black eye for Jeff Bezos.”
Some say that the decision to axe the paper’s planned endorsement was a decision by Bezos not to anger Harris’ rival — Donald Trump — for fear that Trump might be returned to the White House.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik termed the Bezos decision as “pre-censorship,” given Trump’s recent tirades promising to go after media he doesn't like, should he be elected.
That’s particularly true, he said, given Trump’s past efforts to deny Bezos federal contracts during Trump’s earlier tenure in the White House.
CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter also said that there is “a concern that billionaires like Bezos might be rolling over and appeasing Donald Trump even before Election Day actually rolls around,” and the chilling effect it could have on independent journalism.
“This is known by some scholars as ‘anticipatory obedience,’: The idea that some people obey in advance to curry favor with aspiring authoritarians,” Stelter said. “Certainly many liberal critics of Trump believed that‘s exactly what‘s happening now at publications like The Washington Post. And I‘ve heard from staffers inside The Post —reporters and editors — who are worried about the chilling effect that this is having as one source, they’ve said to me, we are talking internally about how to cover a possible second Trump term.”
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