It seems that Murdoch is not the only person who thinks picking a side in the media business is uber important, as apparently a significant amount of Washington Post readers thought so too.
I asked Canva to generate a picture of “angry readers boycotting Washington Post”, and this is what I got. Hopefully my good faith use of generative AI would not be seen as a violation of any course policy.
According to multiple sources, Washington Post lost a quarter million of subscribers, roughly 10% of its subscribership, days after it announced that it would not endorse a candidate in the US presidential election and further will not endorse anyone in future presidential races (though WP will continue to publish political commentaries and reports on the election). This announcement was also followed by the resignation of a couple of WP editors.
This is the second time since 1976 that Washington Post did not endorse a Democratic presidential candidate, and the last time was in 1988 when Washington Post did not endorse a candidate at all.
Another masterpiece of Canva: Jeff Bezos afraid of political retaliation
Sources would suggest the decision came from Jeff Bezos (who is not a Trump supporter it would seem), who indirectly holds the majority share ownership of WP; and that this decision was not popular with its editorial management team who were prepared to endorse Kamala Harris. Though Bezos announced that this decision was based on his belief that it would reduce bias and the readers can form their own opnion, a widely accepted speculation is that he did this out of an anticipation that Trump may win and fear of retaliation.
This is perhaps another example of private companies being more tightly controlled by their shareholders, who can more effectively exsert influence over the management.
But I think what’s more interesting is that, though a corporate itself is not capable of forming political opinions, its stakeholders (in this case readers) do see a corporate as something much more than its legal personhood, and they do expect corporations (especially the press) to act in certain ways.
There are alternatives views as to why its readers are angry with Washington Post.
Neutral sources would try to convince you that the subscribers were angry at WP because not to endorse anyone was seen as a spinless act. Some Left leaning sources seem to suggest this is because some of its readers were disappointed at them for not endorsing Harris. And right leaning sources seemed to mostly have glossed over this development.
I am not that aware of what’s going on down south, so what’s your thoughts on this? Were WP punished by its customers because they failed to take a particular political stance, or was it because they refused to pick a side?
Sources:
https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-endorsement-subscribers-c8380f19023322fe3c4bc1ab8541c14c
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/washington-post-loses-more-than-200-000-subscriptions-following-non-endorsement-1.7090177
