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

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

#121

Post by coliveira »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #107
coliveira wrote: post #92

I 100% agree, but need to add that npr also has financial ties to very powerful oligarchs that need to be disclosed. For example, here is what I get when researching the largest donors to npr: "NPR's largest single donor was the estate of Joan B. Kroc, who left a bequest of over $200 million in 2003. Other major donors include foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Robert Wood…

The issue is that donors don't have a _controlling interest_ in the organization. Having said that, I would expect NPR to disclose, if editorializing a piece on Ms Kroc, the donation that Ms Kroc made to NPR (and they likely do that already).

They don't have control, but these foundations certainly have influence. Similarly for major advertisers, which also have influence in what is aired since editors don't want to anything that will alienate major sources of funding.

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

#122

Post by coliveira »

archagon wrote: post #95
coliveira wrote: post #92

I 100% agree, but need to add that npr also has financial ties to very powerful oligarchs that need to be disclosed. For example, here is what I get when researching the largest donors to npr: "NPR's largest single donor was the estate of Joan B. Kroc, who left a bequest of over $200 million in 2003. Other major donors include foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Robert Wood…

Estate bequeathals and foundation grants are a far cry from direct ownership and editorial control by a single oligarch.

Far cry or not, they're also funded by oligarchs as well.

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

#123

Post by ares623 »

cjaybo wrote: post #111
davisr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone thinks they have “a bias towards reality”. I have yet to see this actually be true! Everyone has biases, whether conscious or unconscious, and trying to claim otherwise is a massive red flag on its own IMO.

ok fine. i prefer a bias towards not enslaving and/or eliminating an entire population because of religious/racial/cultural differences.

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

#124

Post by archagon »

coliveira wrote: post #122
archagon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Estate bequeathals and foundation grants are a far cry from direct ownership and editorial control by a single oligarch.

Far cry or not, they're also funded by oligarchs as well.

It sounds to me like they're funded by estates and foundations, not directly by oligarchs. (In fact, most of the names in your comment are long dead.) And in any case, there's no evidence that any of these organizations are reaching in and demanding direct control over NPR's editorial direction.

You are attempting to draw a parallel where there simply is none.

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

#125

Post by ilamont »

coliveira wrote: post #91

The ideal solution is to stop reading newspapers/sites owned by Bezos. I give the WP zero credibility for anything that is not factual. Even then they will distort the facts with opinions that are aligned to Bezos.

WSJ is not owned by Jeff Bezos, but by another billionaire Rupert Murdoch.

By all means skip the Wall Street Journal's sneering editorials, but don't ignore the reporting. For example, the Theranos scandal was blown open by the WSJ's John Carreyrou. They've done good reporting on Tesla, Epstein, Amazon, and others.

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

#126

Post by ideonexus »

The Saturday editorial "Trump's undertaking is a shot across the bow at NIMBYs everywhere," was the final straw for me. I can forgive an editorial defending Trump's actions--no matter how misguided, but the fact that the WaPo did not disclose Bezos' personal interests in the matter infuriated me bitterly. According to NPR, they corrected the omission on Sunday, but I'm done.

That subscription money now goes to my local NPR station. Anytime NPR covers anything related to Microsoft, they always provide the disclosure of receiving funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That is what legitimate news sources are supposed to do.

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

#127

Post by donohoe »

coliveira wrote: post #116
istjohn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donations from multiple foundations, most of which were created by people long dead, are hardly comparable to ownership by a wealthy, living business magnate.

While the original owners are dead, this doesn't mean the foundation can do whatever "good" you imagine. These foundations are vehicles to keep doing the political bidding of these families and they still operate according to the wishes of the original donors, which are all oriented towards major industries. Or do you really believe people give millions of dollars to whatever cause with zero strings attached?

Yes, they do. Billions per year across a wide variety of organizations.

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

#128

Post by mey »

buellerbueller wrote: post #34
mey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the Whitehouse fit for purpose in the modern age? Probably not. Is it a symbol of the country? Yes. Messing with that symbol on what seems to be a whim funded by corporate interests rather than doing something public and methodical is disgusting. Especially with a government shutdown. We aren't even getting bread and circuses, just Nero at this point.

Sorry you're getting downvoted, but you're commenting on an article about conflicts of interest, among the crowd with the conflicts of interest. Silicon Valley, Venture Capital: they're the sociopaths whose current project is "disrupting" democratic governance.

Thank you for your concern, but there is thankfully more to life than fake internet points.

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

#129

Post by terminalshort »

afavour wrote: post #11
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…

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.

That doesn't solve the problem (because it can't be solved). Someone is in control, and the paper will be biased in their interest.

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

#130

Post by mrguyorama »

next_xibalba wrote: post #99
slg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So it gives the appearance of “opinionated news is good, so long as the opinions are correct.” All news is opinionated news and some opinions are objectively better than others. For example, the simple act of choosing which story to cover is an opinionated choice and if a news outlet decided to cover a random high school teacher the same way they cover the POTUS, that would be an objectively incorrect editorial opin…

Your understanding of the word objective differs markedly from my own. I don’t disagree with the general spirit of what you mean. But I would love to see news outlets, and so called watch dogs, pursue the unobtainable dream of objectivity and neutrality over all others. Calling people toadies and democratically elected administrations “fascists” falls far, far short of that dream.

Except, the news calling, for example, Bush Jr a "War criminal" is exactly objective.

His Casus Belli was false, and he knew that. We invaded sovereign countries illegally.

Would you read news that openly called him a war criminal? Reality gets extreme all the time. If you police the language more than the reality, you are just making the problem worse. You are forcing people to pretend reality isn't so bad just so you do not have to fix reality.

Guess what? Reality is bad right now. We are bombing boats off the coast of south America and posturing like we are going to war with them and bailing out Argentina because of political rhetoric and affiliations and corruption, and we wasted over $150 billion harassing brown people and sending American citizens to foreign prisons and maybe catching a few people who overstayed their visas or walked over our border.

And yet you tone police the people trying to inform you of that.

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