Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron torched his former boss Jeff Bezos for “betraying the principles he professed” after the paper announced it wouldn’t endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
“Jeff Bezos didn’t show courage here,” Baron said in an interview on Boston Public Radio Monday.Â
“I do think this is a serious mistake and it’s done enormous damage to the brand of the Washington Post…I worry about the damage that it does to the brand and the reputation to the Post and that people might have greater suspicions today…,” he added.
The Post announced on Friday that it would not be offering an endorsement in the upcoming presidential election or any future one, in what CEO and publisher Will Lewis said was a “returning to our roots.” The Post had endorsed a Democrat for president in every election since 1976, except for when it skipped one in 1988. Â
The decision sparked an immediate uproar at the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” paper. At least two members of the Post’s staff have resigned from the paper, while another two left the editorial board while staying on staff. Nineteen Post columnists signed onto a letter condemning the decision, specifically calling on Trump to be identified as a threat to the rule of law and the country. Subscribers have reportedly canceled by the hundreds of thousands.Â
And the paper’s union fretted that management was interfering with independent journalism, due to reports that Bezos forced the move in light of Trump’s possible return to power. The paper had reportedly drafted an endorsement of Harris before the call was made to quash it. Â
Baron, who retired from the Post in 2021 after nearly a decade at the paper, slammed the move on X Friday in a post widely shared by Post columnists and reporters.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” he wrote. “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
Baron blamed Bezos for making the call during his interview with Boston Public Radio, saying that he was disappointed in the billionaire Amazon founder, who owns the Post, for caving “to the pressure from Donald Trump.”
“It’s disappointing because during my entire time there he resisted this kind of pressure and he stood up for us,” Baron said of Bezos. “Trump tried to undermine the business of Amazon in multiple ways and yet he stood behind us and I’m just disappointed right now to see that he’s not willing to continue with those principles.”
Baron said the decision is “a betrayal of the principles that he [Bezos] professed and practiced when I was editor of the Washington Post.”
The move is surprising considering that Bezos “showed enormous spine and integrity in defending our work and not yielding to pressure” when Baron worked alongside him, he said, adding that he was “enormously grateful for the support that he provided to us” during that time.
Baron said he believed it was Trump’s escalating attacks on “perceived political enemies” that pressured the WaPo owner to reverse course.
“I think that Trump has just become more virulent in his attacks…he’s always perceived Bezos as an enemy because of his ownership of the Washington Post and his distaste for the coverage of the Washington Post.”
“I do think this decision about presidential endorsement is a sign of weakness and I hope it doesn’t lead to other signs of weakness,” he added.
Bezos defended the paper’s “principled decision” in not endorsing a presidential candidate in an op-ed Monday night, citing a Gallup poll showing Americans are losing trust in the media.
“Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working,” he wrote.
“We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement,” he continued. “Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”
The billionaire Amazon founder, who bought The Post in 2013, insisted that newspaper endorsements “do nothing to tip the scales of an election” but instead “create a perception of bias.” He doubled down on The Post’s decision to end its presidential endorsements by saying it’s a “principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
The Washington Post did not immediately return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
