The Washington Post has reportedly lost over 200,000 digital subscriptions, and three members of its editorial board after it announced that it won’t endorse a candidate in the presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
NPR’s David Folkenflik who cited two sources with knowledge of internal matters at the Washington Post said on Monday that the newspaper had lost about 8% of its paid circulation of about 2.5 million subscribers, including print editions, since Friday’s announcement of the no endorsements.
Notable editors, Molly Roberts, David Hoffman and Mili Mitra had equally resigned from the paper’s 10-member editorial board due to the controversial decision about the endorsement, but they will remain on the Post’s staff, according to public statements and the paper.
It has been said that this is the same number of editorial board members who resigned from the Los Angeles Times’ board in protest of the newspaper’s decision to not endorse a presidential candidate.
Additionally, the USA Today on Monday said it would not endorse a presidential candidate this year even though it had endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 over Donald Trump.
But for the Washington Post, it has for decades, endorsed candidates for president making this year’s non-endorsement a surprise.
Will Lewis, the Post’s publisher and CEO, has taken responsibility for breaking the endorsement tradition at the paper, saying that the Post will not endorse a presidential candidate this year — or in any future election.
But a Post story published on Friday, citing four people who were briefed on the decision, had reported that the Post’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, made the decision to no longer issue presidential endorsements.
The newspaper has however, denied that claim.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Post’s editorial page had planned to endorse Harris, the Democratic nominee, according to the newspaper’s own reporting.
