The Washington Post this week “aggressively ramped up” its paid advertising on social media platforms to boost stories criticizing former President Donald Trump after the backlash over owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to kill an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
The newspaper began its ad blitz at the beginning of the week on sites such as Facebook, with promoted stories centering around Trump’s misstatements, campaign rhetoric, controversial comments about Haitian migrants in Ohio, and about supporters leaving his campaign rallies early, Semafor reported.
However, stories about Harris that were promoted were neutral in tone, the publication noted.
Before Monday, however, the Washington Post had run only about a dozen ads on Facebook for the full month, which promoted the newspaper and didn’t mention Trump, reported The New York Post.
According to a source close to the situation, the Washington Post’s promoted stories reflected content that performs high on the newspaper and was directly pulled from respective reporting and was nothing “new.”
The source said the promoted posts were a mix of all of its content, not just political.