Famed Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein blasted Jeff Bezos’ decision to keep the Washington Post neutral in the 2024 presidential race by declining to endorse Kamala Harris for president.
“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” the pair said in a statement published by CNN Friday.
“Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”
Both men are longtime establishments in journalism and worked at the Washington Post, where their celebrated coverage of Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal helped end his presidency.
Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, scrapped a planned endorsement of Harris from his editorial board this week, a move that precipitated a public newsroom temper tantrum.
“I didn’t sign up to be a journalist to be silent on what matters most. I didn’t come here to be a coward. Some of us really, truly believe in speaking truth to power. We were betrayed today,” Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah wrote on X Friday.
One WashPo editor, Robert Kagan, has already resigned over the decision, while 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions within 24 hours, which one staffer said was “an unusually high number,” Semafor reported.
However, a source familiar with the numbers dismissed the cancellations, telling the outlet they are “not statistically significant.”
Bezos’ decision — which will also stand for “any future presidential election,” according to publisher Will Lewis — follows the Los Angeles Times, whose billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, also declined to issue an endorsement, leading to a flood of resignations from its editorial board.