When Jeff Bezos bought one of the world’s most famous newspapers The Washington Post in 2013, he promised to be a hands-off owner who wouldn’t interfere with editorial decisions.

After backtracking on that promise by blocking the paper’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris, the backlash has been immediate and immense.

More than 200,000 people, or nearly 10 per cent of The Post‘s subscribers, have cancelled their subscriptions and the company has witnessed an exodus of senior journalists and editors.

Bezos, in an op-ed for the paper, defended the decision and bizarrely referred to himself as a journalist.

“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence,” he said.

“Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

The Washington Post has also published several opinions that opposed the decision.

Bezos and Trump previously came into conflict after Trump attacked both the Washington Post and Amazon while president of the United States, but the decision – just nine days before the United States election – has led to criticism.

Bezos has not publicly endorsed a candidate at any previous presidential election, however he has previously donated to both the Democratic Party and Republican Party.

Criticism

Bezos’s business leadership met Trump on the day of the announcement, resulting in accusations of a “quid pro quo” deal.

A Blue Origin executive meeting with Donald Trump has led to accusations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Jeff Bezos. Photo: Getty

Bezos denied that any “quid pro quo” deal had occurred between him and the Trump campaign.

“Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement,” he said.

“I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision.”

Respected former employees of The Post were highly critical of the decision, including legendary Watergate reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

“This decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores The Washington Post‘s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” they said in a joint statement.

“That makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein investigate the Watergate case at their desk in The Washington Post in 1973. Photo: Getty

Exodus

Two journalists have since stepped down from the editorial board that has been tasked with endorsing a presidential candidate since the 1980s.

David E Hoffman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, said it was Bezos’s choice alone to endorse a candidate, leading to him quitting the board.

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” he said.

“I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

Several columnists resigned and former editors of the newspaper criticised how close to the election the decision was made.

“This was made within a couple of weeks of the election, and there was no substantive serious deliberation with the editorial board of the paper,” Marty Baron, a former executive editor, told NPR.

“It was clearly made for other reasons, not for reasons of high principle.”

Earlier this year, The Post’s publisher touted a net gain of 4000 subscribers as a success.

The resulting fallout from Bezos’s intervention will land in the hundreds of thousands of lost subscribers for a newspaper of record that was founded in 1877.