Jeff Bezos was in Italy over the weekend to celebrate Katy Perry’s birthday, according to a report, as The Washington Post was engulfed in chaos over its failure to endorse Kamala Harris for president.
The broadsheet caused an uproar on Friday when it announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate this year, breaking with 36 years of tradition. Angry readers canceled their subscriptions and longtime employees issued bitter resignation letters.
Meanwhile, Bezos — who has a net worth of $208.5 billion — was in Venice with his fiancée Lauren Sanchez to celebrate Perry’s 40th birthday, according to Forbes, according to a person who knows Bezos. told the semaphore,
Sanchez celebrated the birthday in an Instagram Story, posting a photo of a canal in Venice and tagging Perry with the caption: “Best weekend!!! love you.”
The billionaire shed light on the controversy in an op-ed Published on Monday nights, undermining the importance of newspaper support.
“The President’s endorsement does nothing to diminish the scale of the election,” Bezos wrote. “No undecided voter in Pennsylvania is going to say, ‘I’m going with the endorsement of Newspaper A.’ None. The President’s endorsements actually create a perception of bias.”
Bezos’ Italian escape likely won’t help his case at the newspaper, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million.
Washington Post reporters had already thrown the Amazon founder under the bus in an article on Friday that said editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,” The Washington Post reported, citing two sources briefed on the events.
But the newspaper’s CEO and publisher Will Lewis – whom Bezos hired in January despite internal opposition over his alleged involvement in a UK phone hacking scandal – claimed he was behind the lack of support.
In a column, he wrote that the newspaper was not breaking with tradition, but returning to the newspaper’s practice of not endorsing candidates dating back years.
Lewis said it was “consistent with the values for which the Post has always stood” and that it reflected the paper’s confidence in “the ability of our readers to form their own opinions”.
“We recognize that this will be read in a number of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as a denial of responsibility. It is inevitable,” Lewis wrote.
“We don’t see it that way. We see this as consistent with the values for which Post has always stood and what we expect from a leader: character and courage in the service of American morality, respect for the rule of law, and for human freedom in all its aspects. Respect. ,
Washington Post journalists have continued to report that Bezos was the brains behind the surge in support.
Meanwhile, the newspaper is facing a full-blown crisis as left-leaning readers, staff and journalists from other outlets are attacking it for non-support.
more than this 200,000 Washington Post readers reportedly canceled their subscriptions In the three days following the announcement, NPR reports.
The shocking number, as of Monday afternoon, amounts to about 8% of the newspaper’s 2.5 million paid digital subscribers, the report said.
Some old editorial staff have fled the nearly 150-year-old newspaper.
Opinion section member Robert Kagan resigned in protest on Friday. He said Lewis’s explanation was “laughable” and the decision not to endorse stemmed from From an alleged deal between Bezos and former President Donald Trump.
Kagan told The Daily Beast that Trump’s meeting with executives from Bezos’ space company Blue Origin, on the same day the endorsement ended, was evidence of his plan.
Editorial Board Members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts also followedSemaphore Media Journalist Max Tanny gave this information on Monday,
Hoffman, who won a Pulitzer Prize last week and first joined the newspaper in 1982, wrote in his resignation letter, “I believe we face a very real threat of authoritarianism in the candidacy of Donald Trump.” I find it unsettling and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this dangerous moment.”
Roberts, another longtime employee of The Post who first joined the newspaper as a student intern while studying at Harvard University, said she was resigning because of the newspaper’s refusal to endorse Harris. Are.
“I am resigning from The Post editorial board because the moral imperative to support Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is clear,” Roberts wrote in his resignation letter. “Worse, our silence is exactly what Donald Trump wants: for the media, for us, to remain silent.”
