Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has reportedly told the newspaper that it needs to add more conservative columnists in a bid to make the paper more balanced.
The directive comes as the paper has lost more than hundreds of thousands of subscribers over the last several days after Bezos killed the Editorial Board’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
NPR reported that by midday on Monday, more than 200,000 people canceled their subscriptions, more than 8% of the company’s total number of subscribers.
Bezos has told people at the newspaper that he wants to grow the paper’s reach with conservatives, The New York Times reported.
The Times noted that part of Bezos’ shift with what he wants at the newspaper was signaled when he hired Will Lewis — who previously worked at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal— to be its chief executive.
“The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election,” Lewis said in a statement. “Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The paper cited its past position from more than five decades ago of not endorsing presidential nominees.
“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” the paper said. “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way.”
Former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR that the number of subscribers that the paper had lost was “a colossal number.”
He said that people were highly emotional about the paper’s decision to not endorse Harris.
“It is a way to send a message to ownership but it shoots you in the foot if you care about the kind of in-depth, quality journalism like the Post produces,” he said. “There aren’t many organizations that can do what the Post does. The range and depth of reporting by the Post’s journalists is among the best in the world.”
