David Folkenflik, for NPR:

The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. Not all cancellations take effect immediately. Still, the figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of roughly 2.5 million subscribers, which includes print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.

This whole situation is a complete mess.

I have no problem with a newspaper declining to endorse a candidate. It’s an outdated practice that makes little sense in today’s media landscape. But the timing is just plain awful. If you’re not going to make an endorsement then announce that a year in advance. Not days before the general election. Just sloppy all around. I feel for the editorial staff and the integrity of the great people at the Post that had nothing to do with this decision.

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The backlash has been so fierce that Jeff Bezos has written an op-ed in response:

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.

Again, no disagreement here. But this should have been announced a year ago, at least.