Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday accused The Washington Post of writing biased articles about him due to his criticism of the newspaper's owner, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
While Sanders did not mention any specific articles, the Post published a piece last month about an internal conflict between his 2020 presidential campaign's management and unionized campaign workers. Sanders has been a vocal critic of Amazon's labor practices, pressuring the company to bump its minimum wage up to $15 per hour, and was outraged over reports that Amazon may not have paid any taxes in 2018.
During a town hall in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Sanders brought up the tax issue, and said, "See, I talk about that 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. But I guess maybe there's a connection. Maybe we helped raise the minimum wage at Amazon to $15 an hour as well." The Post reports he said the same thing later in the day during a town hall in North Conway, New Hampshire.
In a statement, the Post's executive editor, Martin Baron, said 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."