The Washington Post has intensified its negative coverage of former President Donald J. Trump after digital subscribers canceled memberships en masse to protest its decision not to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. On Monday, The Post significantly increased its expenditures on digital advertising, boosting numerous articles attacking Trump on platforms such as Facebook.
The move comes after WaPo owner Jeff Bezos spiked a planned endorsement of Harris by the newspaper’s editorial board. The Amazon founder penned an editorial explaining the decision, noting that the public no longer trusts the corporate media and that steps must taken to to correct this if the newspaper is to avoid fading into “irrelevance.”
However, the partisan digital subscriber base The Post has courted were not pleased with the decision, with around a tenth of them canceling their subscriptions in protests. Numerous editorial board members and contributors also resigned, including Robert Kagan, husband of warmongering former Biden-Harris official Victoria Nuland.
Boosting anti-Trump articles online is likely an attempt to convince leftist news consumers that The Post will still be pushing an anti-Trump narrative, even if it refrains from openly endorsing his political rivals.
When explaining his decision, Bezos noted that newspaper endorsements “do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” hinting that aping a more neutral stance may leave The Post better placed to influence public opinion.
