David Remnick Slams Jeff Bezos for Having ‘Smothered’ Washington Post Endorsement: ‘A Threatening Demagogue’ Was Looming

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New Yorker editor David Remnick slammed Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos for having “smothered” political endorsements in the run up to the election “when a threatening demagogue” like President-elect Donald Trump was “favorite to win.”

In October Bezos blocked the Post’s editorial board from endorsing Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in a decision that prompted resignations from the masthead and over 250,000 readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Former Post editor Marty Baron and famed Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein also publicly slammed the move, which Bezos defended in a opinion editorial that argued “[p]residential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.” Bezos later congratulated Trump on his electoral victory.

Remnick, speaking with Status founder Oliver Darcy on Monday, pointed at the timing of the decision.

If Jeff Bezos had said, two years ago, that he thought the editorial page should get rid of endorsements — all of them — you could argue the case one way or another. But to do it just days before an election, when a threatening demagogue was the favorite to win the election and your editors had prepared an endorsement of his opponent and you smothered it — well, that is an act that has a very different fragrance.

As a former reporter for the Post, Remnick added:

I’ve worked at two places in my life: The Washington Post and, since 1992, The New Yorker. That’s a lucky thing. At both I always felt that one of the fortunate things about them is that the interests of the readers coincides with those of the writers and editors. Meaning, they wanted us at our best and most rigorous and honest. Our readers, our subscribers, demand a great deal from us, and I take that as inspiration.