Whoopi Goldberg Endorses Tech Journo’s Dream of Buying Washington Post from Bezos

“The View” c0-host Whoopi Goldberg enthusiastically endorsed tech journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher’s dream of purchasing The Washington Post from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos after recent decisions at the paper led to an exodus of staff.

Swisher, who was a guest on the program mentioned that money isn’t the problem as she knows several billionaires that would be interested in buying the paper, but that Bezos is an unwilling seller. Goldberg said maybe that it was time for a “new nespaper” if Bezos wouldn’t sell the Post.

Bezos, who bought the Post in 2013 for $250 million from the founding Graham family has until last year maintained a largely hands-off approach to the newspaper allowing it to continue to be one of the leading liberal voices in print journalism as it has been for decades.  But in 2024 Bezos apparently nixed the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president just days before the election leaving CEO and publisher to explain that it was due to the paper wanting to be independent. The Post will not endorse candidates in future presidential elections which it began doing in 1976 as part of this move.

In an op-ed Bezos said that “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” adding that “what presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias.”

Subscribers reacted negatively with 200,000 cancelations of their print and digital subscriptions according to two two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters.

In addition to the endorsement decision Bezos ignited a firestorm when he announced in a memo to the staff that the opinion page will change direction to focus on defending personal liberties and free markets.

“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

That led opinion page editor David Shipley to resign and he was followed by other staffers, including Ruth Marcus who has been one the prominent liberal voices at the paper.

Bezos paid far less than the paper was worth just a decade earlier before the internet started to eat away at the newspaper business. In the time he has owned the Post he has likely lost millions of dollars, but with his extensive net worth it has been a mere blip on the radar.

Swisher says that she. wants to preserve good journalism, but in reality she like other liberal journalists are bemoaning a rightward turn at the longtime liberal paper in the Trump era.