Bezos: 'Presidential Endorsements Do Nothing'

theodp writes: "Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election," argues Jeff Bezos in The Hard Truth: Americans Don't Trust the News Media, a WaPo op-ed defense of his decision as owner of The Washington Post to end the newspaper's tradition of endorsing candidates for president. "No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, 'I'm going with Newspaper A's endorsement.' None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it's a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy."

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