NPR has reported that over 8%, or ~200,000 people, of Washington Post's subscribers have canceled their subscriptions after not endorsing Kamala Harris after being blocked by Amazon $AMZN's Jeff Bezos

NPR has reported that over 8%, or ~200,000 people, (!!!) of Washington Post's subscribers have canceled their subscriptions after not endorsing Kamala Harris after being blocked by Amazon $AMZN's Jeff Bezos.

By midday Monday, over 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions to the paper, according to two sources familiar with internal matters. While not all cancellations took immediate effect, this number represents about 8% of the paper's 2.5 million paid subscribers, which includes print. Cancellations continued to rise into the afternoon.

A corporate spokesperson declined to comment, citing The Washington Post Co.'s status as a privately held company.

"It's a huge number," former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told NPR. "The issue is, people don't understand why this decision was made. We know the decision was taken, but we don't know the reasoning behind it."

Post Chief Executive and Publisher Will Lewis described the choice not to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential race—or future elections—as a return to the paper’s roots, calling it an "independent paper."

However, many inside the paper questioned this reasoning, particularly with the decision coming just days before a tightly contested race between Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Former Executive Editor Marty Baron expressed his doubts during an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on Monday.

"If this decision had been made three years ago, two years ago, or even a year ago, it would’ve been understandable," Baron said. "It’s a reasonable decision in theory. But making it just weeks before the election, without substantive discussion with the editorial board, shows that it was clearly driven by other factors, not high-minded principles."

The Post's reporters have previously exposed wrongdoing and alleged illegal actions by Trump and his associates. Meanwhile, the editorial board, which operates separately, has described Trump as a danger to American democracy. Several Post journalists reported that their relatives were among those canceling subscriptions.

The wave of cancellations “reflects the deep polarization of our times and the passion people feel about these issues,” Brauchli noted. "This decision gave people an outlet to act on those feelings."

Brauchli has publicly urged readers not to cancel their subscriptions in protest.

"Canceling sends a message to ownership, but it’s self-defeating if you value the kind of in-depth, quality journalism the Post provides," he said. "Few organizations can match the Post in terms of the range and depth of its reporting."

At The New York Times, which has a much larger circulation, a significant protest might only result in cancellations numbering in the low thousands. Earlier this year, Lewis, the Post's publisher, celebrated a modest net gain of 4,000 subscribers.

On Sunday, three of the top 10 most-read stories on the Post's website were penned by staffers upset with Jeff Bezos’ decision. The most popular was a humor column by Alexandra Petri, titled, "It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president," which garnered over 174,000 readers online.