'Terrible mistake': WaPo columnists fire back at paper's leadership over nixed endorsement

More than a dozen Washington Post columnists signed on to a scathing response to their own leadership's decision not to endorse a presidential candidate, calling the choice a "terrible mistake" and an "abandonment" of its "fundamental editorial convictions."

For the first time in more than three decades, the Post, which is owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said it would not endorse a candidate in the presidential race. The move led to widespread backlash — and even a flurry of subscription cancelations from big names — as critics pointed to the newspaper's slogan: "Democracy dies in darkness."

The Washington Post reported, citing four people briefed on the decision, that Bezos made the decision.

Fourteen columnists signed onto a letter posted to the Post's website that called the decision "a terrible mistake."

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"It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love," the columnists wrote. "This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020."

The columnists said there is "no contradiction" between the paper's role as an independent newspaper and its political endorsements, "both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs."

"That has never been more true than in the current campaign," they said. "An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution."

Signing onto the column: Karen Attiah, Perry Bacon Jr., Matt Bai, E.J. Dionne Jr., Lee Hockstader, David Ignatius, Heather Long, Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank, Alexandra Petri, Catherine Rampell, Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin and Karen Tumulty.