It’s time to walk out or shut up…
The Washington Free Beacon obtained a recording of a tense meeting led by The Post’s editorial page editor David Shipley. According to the Free Beacon, Shipley told the opinion staffers they were free to express their dissent but ultimately decide whether they are able to stay or go.
“Whatever you decide, I’m good with it,” Shipley said. “What I really do want to impart is that you do not get stuck in the middle. Don’t be here if you don’t want to.”
Shipley told the staff he “made very strenuous efforts” to convince The Post’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos to reverse the decision via phone call, ultimately failing to do so.
He compared the decision to a “bomb” that “went off, and now we are picking up the pieces.” He complained at the meeting that Bezos was destroying The Post’s reputation as an “independent journalistic organization” and opposed the timing of the decision, noting how it could be interpreted by readers.
Shipley was asked whether Bezos expressed who The Post should endorse. He replied, “I’m not going to say who he expressed a desire for or supported, because that’s just not my place.”
“One thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years,” one editor said at the meeting, per the Free Beacon.
Washington Post opinion writer Drew Goins reportedly suggested a way to circumvent the decision is to publish an editorial denouncing former President Trump without calling it an “endorsement” for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Could we, tomorrow, come out as an editorial board and say, again, Trump is a danger to the republic, Kamala Harris is by far the better choice, it is important to vote in the election, we urge you to go out and vote? Does the board have the independence to say that, without using the word ‘endorsement?’” Goins asked.
“I think I was laboring under a misunderstanding of how editorial boards work until Friday,” Goins later said. “I was pretty taken aback by such a direct intervention in the board from the owner.”
Liberal columnist and MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson fumed that The Post “just pissed off and [drove] away a lot of our most loyal and avid readers.” Another opinion staffer insisted the “damage to the board and the section and the paper is incalculable.”
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