Washington Post pays to boost stories critical of Trump after staff resignations, loss of 250,000 subscribers: report

The Washington Post — rolled by a mass exodus of subscribers because of his refusal to endorse Kamala Harris — “aggressively stepped up his paid advertising campaign” on social media platforms that boost stories critical of Donald Trump, according to a report.

Owner Jeff Bezos has faced backlash over his decision last week to ditch the vice president’s endorsement, which led to the resignation of several high-level employees and the loss of more than 250,000 digital subscribers.

On Thursday, news site Semafor reported that the publication launched an advertising blitz earlier in the week on social media sites like Facebook that is boosting its anti-Trump coverage.

Promoted stories centered around the former president’s campaign rhetoric, misstatements, supporters leaving rallies early and Trump’s controversial comments about Ohio migrants eating dogs. Traffic light reported.

Instead, the promoted stories about his Democratic challenger were neutral in tone and informative, Semafor found.

Before Monday, the paper ran about a dozen Facebook ads for the month of October, mostly promoting the Washington Post brand and avoiding any mention of Trump.

The New York Post has reached out to WaPo for comment.

A source close to the situation told the New York Post that the Washington Post’s promoted social media stories reflect high-performing content.

The content of the advertising posts is taken directly from the respective report, according to the source.

“This is not new,” the source insisted.

The posts promoted by the Washington Post cover a mix of content across all its verticals, including climate, style and other sections, the source added.

The Beltway newspaper’s increase in paid ads this week could also be a reflection of Facebook parent Meta’s policy of banning new ads during election week, which is set for Tuesday.

A source said the Washington Post will likely get some new ads before the tech giant freezes new ad buys.

As of Thursday, at least 250,000 readers — or 10 percent — had canceled their digital subscriptions to the Washington Post in apparent protest of Bezos’ move to end the paper’s decades-long practice of endorsing a presidential candidate. according to the National Public Radio.

Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, published an essay Monday in which he said the decision to drop the endorsement was a matter of “principle” designed to dispel the notion that his paper is biased.

But the move drew howls of protest from readers on social media, as well as from journalists who are either current or former Washington Post employees, such as award-winning Watergate detectives Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

At least three The editor resigned from the paper.

After Bezos’ decision was announced last Friday, some of the paper’s top publishers and editors met to discuss the controversy.

David Shipley, the paper’s opinion editor, listened as his colleagues blamed Bezos for damaging the paper’s reputation as an “independent journalistic organization.” according to the Washington Free Beaconwho obtained the audio of the meeting.

One staffer told Shipley that “the only thing that can’t happen in this country is that Trump gets four more years.”

Shipley responded by telling employees that they were welcome to vent their frustrations, but that they should either accept Bezos’ decision and move on or resign.

“Whatever you decide, I’m good at it,” Shipley said.

“What I really want to get across is don’t get stuck in the middle. Don’t be here if you don’t want to.”

Shipley told his colleagues that he spent an hour on the phone with Bezos in an effort to get him to change his mind and allow the editorial board to issue its endorsement to Harris — but the mogul refused to budge.

He said that while he agreed with “the principle that you don’t have to do presidential endorsements,” he took issue with “Bezos’s timing and how the timing can be read.”

A similar dynamic played out at the Los Angeles Times, where billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board from publishing an endorsement of Harris.

Soon-Shiong said she wants the editorial board to present a side-by-side comparative analysis of the two candidates and their positions so that readers can decide for themselves who to support.

At least three LA Times employees quit in protest and between 10,000 and 18,000 readers canceled their subscriptions to the paper, according to reports.