Jeff Bezos and the ‘Washington Post’

Is a news organisation obliged to endorse political candidates? No. Many do, some don’t. Does a news organisation’s endorsement make much difference to the outcome of any given election? It did once, but not anymore, not really. 

American media is up in arms over the decision by the Washington Post – now owned by the world’s second richest man, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon – not to endorse a candidate in the US presidentials. Is it a storm in a tea cup? Yes and no.  

For good or ill, journalism is a serious business. Nearly two billion people worldwide still read newspapers and magazines, generating a revenue of around $151 billion. It is also an intensely political business. 

Rich people own newspapers to buy influence. The influence they wield buys power. For some, it’s an ego trip. For others, a newspaper or a TV network is a business card that gives them instant access to decision-makers they can bend to their will. 

Citizen Kane , Orson Welles movie about a press baron, was, and to a large extent remains, the archetype. Kane was inspired by the unrivalled giant of American newspaper publishing, William Randolph Hearst. The son of a wealthy father (like Rupert Murdoch), Hearst built the largest newspaper and magazine empire in the world, giving him enormous influence. 

The Post – affectionately known as WaPo – is cut from a different cloth. But it retains a big presence in the political landscape of America. It’s a player. Its tiny print subscriber base (less than 140,000) belies its influence. It has 2.5 million digital subscribers, the third largest in the US after the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal . 

The Post sits at the epicentre of American (and world) power – Washington DC.  It has clout. Bob Woodward and Karl Bernstein, two fresh-faced reporters, skewered President Richard Nixon with their dogged reporting of the Watergate Scandal. Its publication of the classified Pentagon Papers, which showed that America had been misled about the nature of the war in Vietnam, hastened the US pull-out. 

The paper’s fame owes much to its late publisher Katherine (Kay) Graham. Graham transformed the troubled Post from a mediocre newspaper into an American institution and in the process changed herself from “a painfully shy little wren” to become one of the most influential women of the 20 th century. 

Her Beaux-Arts house at 2920 R Street in the nation’s capital became a hub for the powerful and the beautiful: Jack Kennedy (Democrat) was there on the night of his inauguration. Years later, so was Ronald Reagan (Republican). Graham was a liberal through and through but not, impossible as that seems these days, partisan and certainly not tribal. 

I suspect that some of the ire directed at Bezos, and his British-born publisher William Lewis, stems from a sense of disappointment that the Post (like its West Coast rival the Los Angeles Times ) no longer wishes to mix it in the great game of electing the leader of the free world. (Full disclosure: Lewis succeeded me as News Editor at the FT.)

Others see darker forces at work. “This is cowardice, with democracy as a casualty,”  said Marty Baron, the Post’s former executive editor, in a social media post. “ Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner [Jeff] Bezos (and others).” Several high profile journalists have resigned in protest. 

Robert Kagan, a Post columnist and opinion editor-at-large, who had been with the paper for 25 years, said in his resignation statement: “This is obviously an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favour with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory. Trump has threatened to go after Bezos’ business.”

Lewis denies the move was ordered by Bezos, adding: “I do not believe in presidential endorsements. We are an independent newspaper and should support our readers’ ability to make up their own minds.” 

We’d be forgiven for taking Lewis’ assurance with a pinch of salt. Lewis is a company man. He ran Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal , both owned by Rupert Murdoch, a man who, like Hearst, sets the editorial position of his papers. This is clearly understood by his top teams. 

Bezos may or may not be impartial. But he has skin in the game. Amazon, now a $2 trillion company, is in the sights of the American Federal Trade Commission, which is charged with bearing down on monopolies and protecting the consumer. 

Amazon’s explosive growth has made it the world’s convenience store.  A strong case can be made that it is anticompetitive. If Trump wins the White House, this decision will almost certainly head off such a challenge. Endorsing his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, would have put a target on Bezos’ back. 

The Post is not the only newspaper to forego political endorsements. Coincidentally or not, less than a month before the 2022 mid-term elections the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Boston Herald, Orlando Sentinel and San Jose Mercury News announced they would no longer back politicians in state or national elections. 

All these titles are owned by hedge-fund Alden Capital, America’s second largest newspaper chain, which has a reputation for buying, then asset-stripping its acquisitions. In 2020, the election that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden, Alden’s co-founder Randall Smith and his wife gave $100,000 to the “Trump for victory” fund. 

Alden’s justification is interesting because, like so much spin, it contains a kernel of truth. In a chain-wide editorial it said that “ public discourse has become increasingly acrimonious, common ground has become a no man’s land between the clashing forces of the culture wars.” It added: “With misinformation and disinformation on the rise, readers are often confused, especially online, about the differences between news stories, opinion pieces and editorials.”  

This is a specious argument. It is also an argument, much favoured by both the far Left and far Right, that a platform that endorses one candidate or another is inherently biased and therefore cannot be trusted in anything it says. 

That depends, doesn’t it? If a paper like the Washington Post comes to a carefully considered view at the end of an election campaign that this or that candidate gets their vote because that’s what they believe the country needs, then why should that taint it with bias? An endorsement acts as a kind of conclusion, an executive summary, of its coverage. It’s one voice, more to the point one article marked “Opinion”, which readers can choose to ignore. 

But political endorsements are not the same as political bias. Some papers – the Daily Mail, the Telegraph , the Morning Star – are all-in for their team. Bias dressed up as news, features and opinion blend into one strident shout that is as predictable as it is useless. 

Interestingly the Japanese, where print editions remain massive, both the right-of-centre Yomiuri Shinbun (9m subscribers) and left-of-centre Asahi Shinbun (6.6m) steer clear of political endorsement, so as not to compromise sales. 

But let’s cut to the chase. News media are, whether we like it or not, part of the political process. News organisations are also vulnerable to political inducements. Many are on life support, bankrolled by billionaires. Starved of advertising, they chase ratings with big headlines and lurid stories or, quite simply, fairy tales or fake news. 

Readers who are paying attention have noticed, which is why trust in journalism, like politics, has collapsed. When the Post announces, less than a month before one of the tightest and most consequential presidential election ever, that it won’t back either candidate, you have to wonder. 

News organisations, like any other business, have a mixed record and assorted morals. But this moment feels like a watershed. Foreign governments are routinely trying to influence what we read and how we vote. Trump has a hit list of enemies whose opinions he doesn’t like. Truth is not just discretionary — it’s dangerous. 

To do its job and make a contribution to a healthy society, a news organisation must be guided by a mission as well as profit. To rebuild trust it needs to treat information, and how that information is interpreted, as a public good. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have an opinion.