REUTERS/Scott Morgan
- Bernie Sanders said on Monday that the Washington Post is "not one of my great supporters" due to the fact it is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
- Sanders has frequently attacked Bezos and Amazon for the treatment of the company’s workers, and pressured it to introduce a minimum wage of $15 an hour — which it did in November last year.
- The Washington Post’s executive editor Marty Baron called Sanders’ comments a "conspiracy theory," and said Jeff Bezos allows the Post full journalistic independence.
- A CNN journalist compared Sanders’ comments to Donald Trump’s anti-media rhetoric.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders took a shot at the Washington Post during a town hall rally in New Hampshire on Monday.
At a rally in North Conway, Sanders said it was his aim to take on the "corporate media," singling out the Washington Post, which was bought by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013.
"If you look at the Washington Post, which is owned by the wealthiest guy in this country, a guy named Jeff Bezos, we fought with the workers at Amazon to get them 15 bucks an hour," Sanders said.
"We have pointed out over and over again that Amazon made 10 billion dollars in profit last year, you know how much they paid in taxes? You got it zero! Any wonder why the Washington Post is not one of my great supporters."
In a throw-away line, Sanders added that The New York Times was "not much better," although he didn’t elaborate or link it to the Times’ corporate ownership.
CNN reports that Sanders voiced the same criticism of the Post earlier that day in Wolfeboro. "I talk about (Amazon’s taxes) all of the time… And then I wonder why the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, doesn’t write particularly good articles about me. I don’t know why."
You can watch Sanders rally in North Conway below. His comments about the Post come about 28 minutes into the broadcast:
The Washington Post’s executive editor Marty Baron defended his paper’s independence in a statement to CNN, which he later told Business Insider that he would not be commenting further on. He said:
"Sen. Sanders is a member of a large club of politicians — of every ideology — who complain about their coverage. Contrary to the conspiracy theory the senator seems to favor, Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest."
CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny drew a comparison between Sanders’ comments and Trump’s anti-media attacks. Specifically, Trump has frequently referred to the Post as "the Amazon Washington Post."
REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Trump has not explicitly said why the Post’s ownership might bias the paper against him, but he has publicly antagonized Jeff Bezos in the past, revelling in news of the billionaires’ divorce and dubbing him "Jeff Bozo." Bezos for his part has criticised Trump’s demonization of the media, in particular, his tendency to call the media the "enemy of the people."
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See Also:
- 2 US senators wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos demanding answers about how Amazon recommends products
- Here’s what you need to know about Jeff Bezos’ dramatic divorce, and how the leak of his affair with Lauren Sanchez has ties to Trump and the Saudi government
- Amazon is under scrutiny for not paying federal income taxes. Here’s how it got its tax burden down to less than $0.
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton)