Dave Jorgenson, the video reporter who launched the Washington Post’s TikTok account in 2019, may have taken his job into his own hands on Monday with a video, yes, posted to TikTok, in which he roasted owner Jeff Bezos over the decision to kill the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris.
In a minute-long video, Jorgenson played both the editorial board and Bezos himself. “All right, our editorial staff, which is the opinion section of a newspaper, has written our endorsement for Kamala Harris. Here, time to publish,” he begins.
“Wait, stop. Don’t publish it,” a tuxedo-bedecked Jorgenson-as-Bezos interjected. After being asked why, his Bezos continued, “So, as you may know, I’m a billionaire, yes, and many of us billionaires own multiple companies.”
“Yeah, we know you own the Washington Post and Blue Origin, which happens to have billions of dollars in cloud computing contracts with the federal government,” Jorgenson as the editorial board answered before he asked if Bezos was “worried about retribution.”
“I didn’t say that, but many experts have pointed to that, yes, in a coffee table book published in September, Trump said he was watching Mark Zuckerberg closely, and that Zuckerberg would spend the rest of his life in prison if he did anything illegal in this year’s election. And perhaps coincidentally, a lot of billionaires have been a lot of fancy parties where Trump happens to be, to stay in his orbit,” his Bezos explained.
“I didn’t say that, but many experts have pointed to that, yes, in a coffee table book published in September, Trump said he was watching Mark Zuckerberg closely, and that Zuckerberg would spend the rest of his life in prison if he did anything illegal in this year’s election. And perhaps coincidentally, a lot of billionaires have been a lot of fancy parties where Trump happens to be, to stay in his orbit,” his Bezos explained.
“Remember like 50 years ago when our editorial section did not regularly endorse candidates?” he asked. “Before Watergate?” Jorgenson wryly noted.
“So you do remember. Let’s do that again to keep tradition. I’m sure there won’t be a massive reaction to this.”
It’s not clear if Jorgenson will face repercussions for the video, but no one can accuse him of cowardice.
In an op-ed published late Monday Bezos insisted concerns about his business had no impact on his decision to decline to publish the editorial board’s endorsement.
He cited public perception of media bias as one reason. “We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate,” Bezos wrote. He also cited cratering public trust in media, without mentioning the more 200,000 people who signaled a lost of trust in WaPo by canceling their subscriptions.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” he added, besides creating “a perception of bias.” Bezos did not address why, if endorsements don’t matter, he canceled the Harris endorsement under circumstances guaranteed to maximize attention to the cancellation.
Bezos also didn’t specifically address reporting by the New York Times that he made his decision more than a month ago, but for reasons unknown didn’t inform staff about it, and even allowed the editorial board to write its endorsement of Harris before killing it off. He did however deny that the timing was in any way suspicious: “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.”
The fact that Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp met with Donald Trump the same day Bezos’ decision was announced is also unrelated, he insisted. “I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand.”
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