The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, denied on Monday that his personal interests were at the origin of the lack of support for a US presidential candidate by the Washington Post, a newspaper he has owned since 2013, thus defending a “decision of principle “.
The decision “was made entirely internally”, writes Jeff Bezos in a column published in “WaPo”, stating “not to lobby” in favor of his personal interests in the newspaper’s decisions.
“I assure you that my opinions here are, in fact, positions of principle, and I believe that my record as owner of the Post since 2013 supports this idea,” he adds.
End of position statement
Calls to vote issued by the editorial boards of newspapers, which bring together their columnists, are common in the United States media landscape.
The main newspaper of the American capital, famous for having revealed the Watergate scandal, announced on Friday through its general director William Lewis that it would not support any candidate in the presidential elections of November 5 and that it would refrain from calling a presidential election . vote for a candidate in future elections.
The Washington Post endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020.
In recent years, Jeff Bezos’ companies have signed important contracts with the American government, and in particular with the Pentagon, in the field of data storage (“cloud”).
The announcement provoked numerous reactions, most of them indignation, and according to public radio NPR, “WaPo” had lost about 200,000 subscribers between Friday and Monday, that is, 8% of its total.
Source: BFM TV
