Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the famed journalists whose reporting on the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post led to Richard Nixon’s resignation from the White House, questioned their former publication’s “surprising and disappointing” decision to not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page,” began a joint statement from the pair, saying the paper’s decision “ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat [GOP nominee and former President] Donald Trump poses to democracy.”
“Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process,” the statement added.
The Post had drafted an endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris before the call to stop endorsing presidential candidates came from Bezos, the paper’s billionaire owner, according to the newspaper’s own reporting on the move.