The Washington Post will not endorse either presidential candidate in the upcoming election, its first such decision since the 1980s, leaving many editorial staff members surprised and upset.
Publisher and CEO William Lewis announced the decision in a statement published Friday, highlighting the newspaper’s commitment to being "independent."
"Our job as the newspaper of the capital city of the most important country in the world is to be independent. And that is what we are and will be," Lewis wrote.
The non-endorsement breaks from the Post’s longstanding practice of endorsing Democratic presidential candidates, a streak it maintained in every election since 1988. A Harris endorsement drafted by the editorial page's staff was ready for the board's approval, but the newspaper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos blocked it, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
David Shipley, the Post’s editorial page editor, broke the news to staffers in a meeting shortly before Lewis’s announcement, leaving many editorial board members "surprised and angry," CNN reported. The "tense" meeting left staffers "shocked" and "uniformly negative," according to NPR. Editor-at-large Bob Kagan resigned following the announcement, according to CNN.
The Post’s decision, according to Lewis, follows an editorial policy articulated in 1960, when the board emphasized its aim to "arrive at our opinions as fairly as possible, with the guidance of our own principles of independence but free of commitment to any party or candidate."
The move comes after the Los Angeles Times also announced it will not endorse either candidate in November. The newspaper has endorsed every Democratic presidential candidate since 2008.