Two More Washington Post Editorial Board Members Resign in Protest Over Refusal to Endorse In Presidential Race

AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke

Two more members of the editorial board at The Washington Post resigned after the paper announced it was not endorsing a candidate for president.

In the days following the Post ‘s announcement on Friday that it would be “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates,” one of the nation’s most trusted newspapers faced fierce backlash by its readers (many of whom canceled their subscriptions ) and its own staff. The Post is owned by billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos , who many claim kiboshed an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that was already approved and drafted. By not allowing the endorsement of Harris to be published, many saw this as an act of anticipatory obedience to appease former President Donald Trump .

Several journalists and writers who have been published in the Post resigned or said they would not write for the paper again .

Two more of those editorial board members joined the exodus including Molly Roberts , who posted a statement on Twitter/X explaining why she was stepping down:

Let’s say that an editorial board had a decades long practice of not endorsing candidates for president: This would be the election to reverse that position and take a stand. That the Washington Post editorial board has been forced to do the opposite dishonors our values and robs us of our purpose.

To be very clear, the decision not to endorse this election was not the editorial board’s. It was (you can read the reporting) Jeff Bezos’s. By registering my dissent, I don’t intend to impugn the conduct of any of my colleagues, all of whom were put in nearly impossible positions.

The mission of an editorial board is simpler than it may seem: We want to make the country and the world a better place, by supporting the better candidate or the best policy, and by condemning the worst. We want to change minds. But above all else, we want to write with moral clarity. If we can’t do that, what are we doing at all?

I’m resigning from The Post editorial board because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is about as morally clear as it gets. Worse, our silence is exactly what Donald Trump wants: for the media, for us, to keep quiet.

At a rally the day before The Post announced it wouldn’t endorse, he went on a minutes-long rant trashing the supposedly unfair, unfree press. He ended, “They’re the enemy of the people, and someday they’re not going to be the enemy of the people, I hope.”

It’s that very hope we are fulfilling when we shut up rather than speaking out. And it’s a candidate’s expression of that hope that turns an otherwise mundane newspaper endorsement into an essential signal. Donald Trump is not yet a dictator. But the quieter we are, the closer he comes — because dictators don’t have to order the press to publish cooperatively if it wishes to go on publishing at all. The press knows, and it censors itself.

Our endorsement was our strongest means of sending the message that we are watching, and that we care enough say something. Instead we have sent the message that we don’t care after all. To dissent, in this case, is to depart.

Also stepping down from the editorial board was Pulitzer Prize-winner David Hoffman , who will remain at the Post , telling editorial page editor David Shipley in a letter : “While leaving the board, I refuse to give up on The Post , where I have spent 42 years.”