WaPo opinion editor tells angry staff they could resign over Bezos' endorsement decision during tense meeting
The top opinion editor at The Washington Post had a frank conversation with his staff fuming over the decision to not make a presidential endorsement, telling them they could resign if they cannot come to terms with it.
The Washington Free Beacon obtained a recording of a tense meeting Monday led by The Post's editorial page editor David Shipley. According to the Free Beacon, Shipley told the opinion staffers they were free to express their dissent but ultimately decide whether they are able to stay or go.
"Whatever you decide, I’m good with it," Shipley said. "What I really do want to impart is that you do not get stuck in the middle. Don't be here if you don't want to."
Shipley told the staff he "made very strenuous efforts" to convince The Post's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos to reverse the decision via phone call, ultimately failing to do so.
He compared the decision to a "bomb" that "went off, and now we are picking up the pieces." He complained at the meeting that Bezos was destroying The Post's reputation as an "independent journalistic organization" and opposed the timing of the decision, noting how it could be interpreted by readers.
Shipley was asked whether Bezos expressed who The Post should endorse. He replied "I’m not going to say who he expressed a desire for or supported, because that’s just not my place."
"One thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years," one editor said at the meeting, per the Free Beacon.
Washington Post opinion writer Drew Goins reportedly suggested a way to circumvent the decision is to publish an editorial denouncing former President Trump without calling it an "endorsement" for Vice President Kamala Harris.
"Could we, tomorrow, come out as an editorial board and say, again, Trump is a danger to the republic, Kamala Harris is by far the better choice, it is important to vote in the election, we urge you to go out and vote? Does the board have the independence to say that, without using the word ‘endorsement?’" Goins asked.
"I think I was laboring under a misunderstanding of how editorial boards work until Friday," Goins later said. "I was pretty taken aback by such a direct intervention in the board from the owner."
Several staffers expressed concerns over the control Bezos may have over the paper going forward. Opinion columnist Dana Milbank wondered if the billionaire could interfere "if it benefits Jeff’s business interests, and it’ll trump our journalism," a concern he told the Free Beacon.
"I have always been able to reply with a clean conscience that our owner, Jeff Bezos, does not meddle with our copy, doesn't tell us when we can't publish something… I feel like I cannot say that anymore," economic columnist Catherine Rampell said. "Who's going to believe us that that is true, that we are not just doing his bidding, that we are still an independent journalistic organization?"
Liberal columnist and MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson fumed that The Post "just pissed off and [drove] away a lot of our most loyal and avid readers." Another opinion staffer insisted the "damage to the board and the section and the paper is incalculable."
"[The] failure to raise our voice strongly in revulsion against Donald Trump, and everything that he stands for, makes me heartsick," columnist Ruth Marcus said at the meeting.
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Jennifer Rubin, who has been an outspoken critic of Bezos' decision, sounded the alarm about the "apparent conflict" the billionaire will have with his other businesses and their ties to a potential Trump presidency going forward, asking "If Trump wins, how will we ever know that he's not putting his thumb on the scale?"
"[The] country is on the verge of electing someone who is running on a platform of retribution, fear and retaliation," Rubin said.
"If the doubts are overwhelming, then you have to make the decision that feels pure and right and ethical to you," Shipley replied to Rubin.
A spokesperson for The Washington Post declined to comment.
Panic continues to rattle The Post as the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" shed more than 250,000 subscribers since Friday as liberal readers remain outraged over its decision not to endorse Harris.