A mother’s love is more fickle than we thought.
A distraught Washington Post reporter took to X Saturday to reveal that her own mother had nixed her subscription to the paper to protest owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
“My mom just told me she cancelled her subscription to The Washington Post. She reads every one of my stories. It was a heartbreaking call,” said Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion issues for the paper.
“I understand why she did it,” the writer continued. “Post reporters had no part in this decision. But when you cancel, you are hurting us, not our owner …
“I completely understand if you’ve lost faith in our owner, but please, don’t lose faith in us.”
In an X thread, Kitchener said she made this case to her mother and “asked her to reconsider” — but offered no indication that her argument had been successful.
“The Washington Post’s abortion reporter was just rejected by her own mother,” conservative commentator Mark Hemingway quipped.
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.
The decision from Bezos also led to a public temper tantrum by top editors and writers at the Washington Post.
“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.”