Washington Post columnist Michele Norris is the latest esteemed WaPo employee to resign over owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to scrap a planned Kamala Harris endorsement in the presidential race. Norris had been with the paper for five years in her role as a columnist and consultant for Post Opinions and previously worked as a reporter for the Post in the beginning of her career.
“As of yesterday, I have decided to resign from my role as a columnist for The Washington Post — a newspaper that I love. In a moment like this, everyone needs to make their own decisions,” she wrote in a post on X explaining why she’s stepping down.
“The Washington Post’s decision to withhold an endorsement that had been written & approved in an election where core democratic principles are at stake was a terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976,” she continued.
“The reason given in no way justifies why the newspaper would abdicate its role in informing and guiding voters as it has done in making endorsements in other key races this year, and as it has done in endorsing the candidates who were running against Trump in both 2016 and 2020.”
Norris won a Peabody Award in 2014 for founding The Race Card Project for NPR.
The move comes after Friday’s announcement that the Post will not be endorsing a candidate in this year’s presidential race, which publisher Will Lewis chalked up to “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” Later on Friday, word broke that the Washington Post editorial board had already written an endorsement for Harris but owner Jeff Bezos personally nixed it.
Editor at large Robert Kagan submitted his resignation on Friday and the Post suffered a flurry of cancellations and public condemnations for the decision, including from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who famously broke the Watergate scandal story for the Post.
“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” the duo said in a joint statement posted on social media.
“Under Jeff Bezos’ 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,” the statement continued. “And that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”
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