(Reuters) – More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions for the Washington Post by midday on Monday, following the newspaper’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president, National Public Radio reported.
Not all cancellations take effect immediately, the NPR report said, adding that still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well.
A series columnists have also resigned from the Washington Post, which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, NPR reported.
The Washington Post declined to comment on the report when contacted by Reuters.
In a post on Friday, William Lewis, the publisher and chief executive officer of the Washington Post, said the newspaper would not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in the Nov. 5 election, nor in any future presidential election.
“We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” Lewis wrote.
“The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake,” wrote 20 columnists in an opinion piece on the Post’s website, adding that it “represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love.”
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Maju Samuel)
