Jeff Bezos defends decision to not have Washington Post give presidential endorsement

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is defending his decision to not have the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post, endorse a presidential candidate. He cited distrust in the news in his op-ed published by the Post Monday evening. He referenced a recent Gallup poll showed only 31% of Americans had confidence in the news media.

At least one former Washington Post employee accused him of bending the knee to Donald Trump.

This is obviously an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory. Trump has threatened to go after Bezos's business," said former Washington Post Editor-at-Large Robert Kagan. He resigned following the paper's decision to not endorse a candidate.

It is true that the billionaire has been a frequent target of Trump, with threats to his company coming even before the former President was first elected.

“He owns Amazon, he wants political influence so that Amazon benefits from it. That’s not right. If I become President, they’re going to have problems, they’re going to have such problems," said then-candidate Donald Trump at a February 2016 rally.

The former President continued to pile on Amazon and Bezos through his first term in office. Bezos said there was no quid pro quo while acknowledging the timing of his decision was poor so close to the election. He wrote “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election that presidential endorsements do is create a perception of bias.” before saying ending the endorsements was “a principled decision, and it’s the right one”

“They’ve got to make a decision as to whether the financial interests, the existential interests, of saying “our newspaper takes a position,” whether that is sufficient to justify having newspaper editorials as part of their job," said Towson University Professor Emeritus Richard Vatz.

NPR reported more than 200 thousand people canceled their digital subscriptions to the Post in the wake of the decision not to endorse. The number is nearly 10% of the paper’s subscriber base.