With US presidential elections approaching nearer, The Washington Post on Friday stated that it will not support a candidate in the race to the White House this year and would avoid doing so in the future, a decision that received criticism from a former executive editor.
In a report by The Washington Post — reporting on its own inner workings — cited two anonymous people familiar with the event, saying that an endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris had been written but was not published. The sources informed The Washington Post that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, made the decision.
However, while refuting the claims, the US-based newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, in a column, stated that the decision was actually made to return to the newspaper’s roots of “non-endorsement.”
“We recognise that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis wrote. “We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”
“This was a Washington Post decision to not endorse, and I would refer you to the publisher’s statement in full,” Chief Communications Officer Kathy Baird was quoted as saying by The Washington Post in its report.
Meanwhile, shedding light on why the decision of “non-endorsement” was made, Lewis cited the newspaper’s history. He stated that the newspaper only began regularly supporting candidates for the US elections when it endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976.
The newspaper stated that the decision had “roiled” several on the opinion desk, which functions independently of the newspaper’s staff.
