Three Washington Post editorial board members step down amid wave of canceled subscriptions over non-endorsement

The ripple effect of Jeff Bezos’s decision to block The Washington Post from endorsing a presidential candidate continues to reverberate through the newspaper, as a tidal wave of readers cancel their subscriptions and nearly one-third of the Post’s editorial board step down in protest.

The ripple effect of Jeff Bezos’s decision to block The Washington Post from endorsing a presidential candidate continues to reverberate through the newspaper, as a tidal wave of readers cancel their subscriptions and nearly one-third of the Post’s editorial board step down in protest. The resignations came Monday as David Shipley, the Post’s editorial page editor, met with staffers in the opinion section, telling them that Bezos, the newspaper’s owner, first expressed doubts in September about endorsing in this year’s presidential election. A person with knowledge of the matter told CNN that an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris had been drafted by the Post’s editorial board members before it was quashed by Bezos. But a final decision on the endorsement was not made until last week, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. Shipley said he tried to convince Bezos to agree to make the endorsement, but “I failed,” he told staffers, according to the person. Attendees asked about reports that hundreds of thousands of Post readers had canceled their subscriptions since the decision was announced Friday, but Shipley said he did not know the figures, the person said. On Monday, NPR reported that by midday more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions to the Post, citing two people familiar with the matter. CNN could not independently confirm the figure. A Washington Post spokesperson declined to comment.