The Washington Post editorial board published a glowing assessment of President Donald Trump's move to demolish the White House East Wing and replace it with a massive ballroom paid for by hundreds of millions in corporate donations without disclosing that the flagship company of the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos, was one of those donors.
The article from the I's editorial board, titled "In Defense Of The White House Ballroom," positioned opponents of the project as "NIMBYs" (or Not In My Back Yard activists, blanket opposed to new development near their home or work.) "The White House cannot simply be a museum to the past. Like America, it must evolve with the times to maintain its greatness. Strong leaders reject calcification," the article concluded.
However, according to NPR, the original version of the article that went to print "did not initially disclose" that Amazon, the online retail giant that is Bezos' central company, "was a major corporate contributor in helping to defray those costs."
"On Sunday, the newspaper inserted an acknowledgement of the Amazon donation into the editorial – but only once the veteran news executive Bill Grueskin, now at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, noted its absence in a social media post and made inquiries at the paper," reported NPR's David Folkenflik. Moreover, even once the addition was made, it was not flagged for readers.
A core criticism of the White House ballroom project has nothing to do with the fact that the East Wing was demolished to build it, but rather concerns that large companies like Amazon that were major donors to the project could then either solicit quid pro quo regulatory actions by the government, or be given preferential treatment in contract procurement or other processes.
This comes after months of criticism about Bezos' increasingly heavy-handed involvement in the content of the Washington Post, which he initially acquired in 2013.
In 2024, he infamously strong-armed the editorial board against endorsing former Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. Then, in February of this year, he proclaimed the opinion section would no longer publish any stories he perceived to be opposed to "free markets and individual liberty," prompting a mass exodus of staff.