Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 305 posts

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#61

Post by metabagel »

pessimizer wrote: post #54
afavour wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say the UK’s Guardian newspaper is a useful example here. It’s been owned by the Scott Trust since the 1930s: https://www.theguardian.com/about/history And it has survived without continual extra investment. Possible that WaPo is just managed badly.

> And it has survived without continual extra investment. It has not. The Guardian loses millions every year. I think it made money one year in the late 90s iirc.

Their revenue is growing though, and they are expanding.

https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/11/Guardian_Annual_Report...

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#62

Post by clort »

nickff wrote: post #20
afavour wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this was always the tell. If he truly cared about journalism and wanted to use his money to support it he could very easily place WaPo in some sort of trust he has no power over. And yet, despite publicly admitting the conflict of interest, he hasn’t. Only one reason why you do that and it's because you intend to make the most of your control.

It seems like the problem with WaPo is that it’s constantly losing money, and has been since well before Bezos bought it. This makes it difficult to be hands-off for (at least) two reasons: he can’t just put it in a conventional trust, because he has to constantly give the organization money (which is abnormal for such a trust), and (secondly) in order to be sustainable, WaPo needs to be significantly changed so that…

Bezos has so much money that he could simply drop a billion or five into the trust and never need to see any return from it.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#63

Post by tpmoney »

afavour wrote: post #10
placardloop wrote: post #7

The title makes it seem like this is a major or systemic issue, but the article content essentially says this was a one-off, potentially a mistaken omission that was fixed within 24 hours. The article itself even states that the Post routinely discloses its ties to Bezos in its reporting and this was an anomaly. I used to read the Post (I’m not a subscriber anymore) but I do distinctly remember seeing such a disclosu…

The article does not say this was a one-off: > On at least three occasions in the past two weeks Bezos announced a relaunch of the Opinion section earlier in the year, I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if there has been a policy change. Three times in two weeks is a lot. > potentially a mistaken omission that was fixed within 24 hours potentially , yes. Responsible news organizations post correction notices w…

Do Editorial and Opinion sections of news papers do "conflict of interest" disclosures as a matter of course? It seems like it should be assumed that an Opinion article is expressly a biased article, written by someone with an interest in the topic at hand. If the NY Times wrote an editorial on schools or on medicaid, I wouldn't really expect to see a line disclosing the number of editorial staff members with children in the school systems or with family members receiving medicaid.

And this is an honest question, I don't know what the WP standard for their Editorial and Opinion pages were prior to Bezos' ownership, nor what the broader industry standard was before say 2016.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#64

Post by senderista »

jonas21 wrote: post #40
davisr wrote: post #3

If you think this kind of reporting is cool, you should donate to https://fair.org . Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) has been exposing two-faced news for decades. They are worthy of your attention.

FAIR has its own biases, and these can be quite strong (have a glance at the studies on their website and judge for yourself). IMO, the Columbia Journalism Review ( https://www.cjr.org ) is a better source for media criticism.

FAIR has always been like this since the 80s. I don't really expect these media watchdogs to be "neutral" though; it's enough that they only call out bias against their favored positions. If there are enough such orgs across the spectrum then they serve their purpose.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#65

Post by senderista »

pessimizer wrote: post #53
embedding-shape wrote: post #2

> When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a “complexifier” for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post. - https://archive.is/flIDl It kind of…

> Washington Post becoming a shadow of itself The Post was always terrible, always extremely conservative, and always blatantly mixed editorial in with its news reporting (unlike most other outlets in the past.) A bunch of anti-Trump people decided it was movement liberal because it didn't like Trump (like every other Republican and Republican outlet until people started voting them out over it.) WaPo was the most ri…

> always extremely conservative

You have a pretty idiosyncratic definition of "conservative"

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#66

Post by ecshafer »

davisr wrote: post #52
ecshafer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their headlines include lines about marching against fascists and calling people toadies. This would indicate their bias is rather left.

How do you believe their reporting differs from reality? They're writing about rising authoritarianism and those who submit to it, which is a fact of the world happening today. They use the term "toady" in its literal definition. FAIR has anti-bias and counter-spin, aka "a bias towards reality." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toady (noun) : one who flatters in the hope of gaining favors : sycophant

I've never seen Manhattan Institute, Hudson Institute, or Cato Institute using the term Toady even if technically correct. It is a term almost exclusively used by the left, typically more anti-authoritarian. Maybe you have some libertarian types using it as well.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#67

Post by metabagel »

skybrian wrote: post #13

My initial reaction to the White House ballroom was “the next president should tear it down and put it back the way it was, just on principle.” I was surprised by that editorial and thought it made a good (or at least arguable) point that it’s needed and the next president will be glad to have it, instead of doing large official gatherings in tents. I’m more neutral on it now. I don’t really know what facilities the…

Trump doesn't have the right to tear down the White House. It doesn't belong to him. It needs to go through a design approval process.

By law, any money spent by the executive needs to come from Congressional appropriation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antideficiency_Act

> The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from ... accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342.

Trump said the project "won't interfere with the current building. … It will be near it but not touching it. It pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite place. I love it." Then, he sent in bulldozers to bring the whole thing to the ground.

Trump is also requesting the government, of which he is the head, to cut him a check for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.

Trump has engaged in illegal impoundment and rescission of funds and programs appropriated and authorized by Congress.

Republicans in Congress and serving on the Supreme Court are failing to check Trump's lawlessness.

Trump has stated that he would like to serve an unconstitutional third term as president. If this comes to pass, it would mark the end of the American democratic experiment.

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#69

Post by pessimizer »

webdoodle wrote: post #43

Citizen's United destroyed journalism by making it for profit propaganda for the wealthy, but its always been under attack. Journalism has always been under attack from the wealthy robber barons of the time. Rockefeller famously bought out the magazine/newspaper that muckraker Ida Tarbell wrote for after she wrote a damning book about Standard Oil. However, it only hardened her and other muckrakers, who later led to…

[flagged]

Re: Washington Post editorials omit a key disclosure: Bezos' financial ties

#70

Post by Fluorescence »

afavour wrote: post #23
nickff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the problem with WaPo is that it’s constantly losing money, and has been since well before Bezos bought it. This makes it difficult to be hands-off for (at least) two reasons: he can’t just put it in a conventional trust, because he has to constantly give the organization money (which is abnormal for such a trust), and (secondly) in order to be sustainable, WaPo needs to be significantly changed so that…

I’d say the UK’s Guardian newspaper is a useful example here. It’s been owned by the Scott Trust since the 1930s: https://www.theguardian.com/about/history And it has survived without continual extra investment. Possible that WaPo is just managed badly.

I don't know about that.

> It’s been owned by the Scott Trust since the 1930s

It's now The Scott Trust Ltd. In 2008 they wound up the original trust and transferred assets to a limited company which has gutted a lot of what it was. They sold off local papers to Maxwell's empire, their radio interests and Autotrader. They even sold off their properties to private equity.

They sold off the Observer, essentially The Guardian's Sunday edition, which was condemned as a betrayal of the OG trust. The original trust was bound by deed to pursue it's mission but the limited company can sell off the Guardian or change it's purpose with a 75% board vote.

Post reply on HN