In an op-ed, Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, states that Americans have lost trust in the news media.

• In an op-ed published Monday evening, Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, defended the newspaper's decision not to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the presidential election.
• Amazon founder Bezos deemed it a "significant move in the right direction" to restore the trust lost in the media among Americans.
• Over 200,000 digital subscribers have reportedly left The Post due to the decision.

In an op-ed published Monday evening, Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, defended the newspaper's recent decision not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election as a step towards restoring trust in the media among Americans.

Bezos also expressed regret that the change was made too late, before the election and the heightened emotions surrounding it.

The op-ed titled "The hard truth: Americans don't trust the news media" was published shortly after NPR reported that The Washington Post had lost over 200,000 digital subscribers since Friday's announcement by CEO Will Lewis that the newspaper would no longer endorse presidential candidates.

Three members of the Post's editorial board resigned from their positions on the panel while maintaining their staff roles at the newspaper.

In the op-ed, Bezos stated that he did not endorse a candidate and clarified that there was no quid pro quo involved in his decision.

The newspaper's decision regarding the presidential campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was not discussed with or informed to either of them, as stated by Bezos.

"It was made entirely internally," said Bezos.

On the same day that Lewis announced the paper's decision, Bezos met with Trump and Dave Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, his space exploration company.

"When I discovered the truth, I sighed because I knew it would be used to attack my decision as anything other than principled," Bezos wrote.

Although I was not aware of the meeting prior to its occurrence, even Limp did not know about it in advance. The meeting was scheduled hastily that morning. Despite this, there is no link between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any assertion to the contrary is untrue.

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