'Washington Post' editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties
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A year ago, in explaining why he had blocked the publication of an endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Washington Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos conceded that "When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post."
On at least three occasions in the past two weeks, an official Post editorial has taken on matters in which Bezos has a financial or corporate interest without noting his stake. In each case, the Post's official editorial line landed in sync with its owner's financial interests.
In the most recent instance, the Post defended President Trump's jaw-dropping moves to raze the East Wing of the White House without any of the typically required studies or consultations as he seeks to build a vast ballroom. "Trump's undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere," the Post wrote in its editorial , which first appeared online Saturday.
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As the White House had announced , Amazon was a major corporate contributor in helping to defray those costs. But the Post did not initially disclose that.
On Sunday, the newspaper inserted an acknowledgement of the Amazon donation into the editorial – but only once the veteran news executive Bill Grueskin, now at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, noted its absence in a social media post and made inquiries at the paper. It did not flag the alteration for readers.
In his posts, Grueskin, a former top news editor at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, had written the editorial's fundamental reasoning "illustrates the collapse of the new Washpost Opinion page" and noted there was "no clarification or correction appended to the piece."
The Post and its new opinions editor, Adam O'Neal, did not reply to detailed requests for comment for this story.
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