Over 200,000 people have canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post after the decision to not endorse Harris

After the paper decided not to support Kamala Harris for president, more than 200,000 readers stopped paying for the Washington Post.

More than 200,000 people who were readers to The Washington Post have cancelled their subscriptions after the paper’s controversial decision not to support Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris before the November 5 election. 

National Public Radio (NPR) cited people who said that the number of cancellations has continued to rise. In response, several columnists have quit their jobs.

Around 8% of The Post’s paid circulation, or about 2.5 million customers to both print and digital versions, have cancelled their subscriptions in this wave. 

Both readers and staff are split on the choice; talks within the company show that people have different feelings about the editorial shift.

In reaction to the criticism, Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, defended the choice by saying that editorial recommendations can make people think of bias and rarely change the result of an election. 

Bezos wrote, “Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.” He said that the move was made out of a commitment to fair news, not for political reasons.

Additionally, Bezos said that the choice was made without any input from either election party. 

He made it clear that there was no exchange of anything in exchange for anything else. He also stressed that neither Harris’s campaign nor her opponent’s campaign was contacted. 

He said, “It was made entirely internally,” but he did say that the time could have been better. 

He said, “I wish we’d made this call before the election so that it wouldn’t have made people more emotional.”

Because of the choice, some important people have left The Post. The Post’s editor, Will Lewis, said that the change was a return to a historical norm that showed the paper’s faith in readers’ ability to form their own views. Many people have said bad things about the move, including Martin Baron, a former editor who called it “cowardice” and “disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”

Along with The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times recently said it would not support a candidate in the upcoming election. This is said to have cost the paper thousands of readers. 

With only a few days left until the U.S. election, it’s still too early to tell what effect these changes will have, but both newspapers are trying to find a good mix between being honest as journalists and meeting the needs of their readers.