Executives of Blue Origin briefly met with Trump within hours after paper spiked endorsement of Harris
The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.
Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.
Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.
And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
In a way he’s doing the country a favor by shining a spotlight on how the power created by wealth can be blatantly abused. This should make us rethink freedom of the press and corporate control of media. News publishing is probably the most important area where antitrust laws should be applied and strengthened. In general, wealthy individuals and corporate boards have gone way past a reasonable point of simply buying controlling interests in something to acquire more power and influence than the public has through government. Democracy means nothing if kings and queens can sprout up inside of it. And that’s not “communism” talking, it’s commonsense-ism.