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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

#141

Post by overfeed »

tpmoney wrote: post #106
overfeed wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great, and that's followed by > Even now, the newspaper's reporters do so as a matter of routine. What's the issue with the follow up? The headline says "WaPo no longer does B". I quoted the bit that says "in the past, WaPo used to resolutely do A and B" to answer your question about whether we should expect B at all, and your riposte is "the NPR article continues to say WaPo still does A". The NPR article is about…

The issue is that the followup contradicts the idea that there has been a change of any note. If I tell you in one breath: "Bernie Sanders has reduced is fighting for civil rights in worrying ways" And in a second breath tell you that: "Bernie Sanders has resolutely fought for civil rights in the past and even now does so as a matter of routine" You would probably find those statements at odds with one another. You q…

> Bernie Sanders has resolutely fought for civil rights in the past and even now does so as a matter of routine"

I see where the disconnect is. Please read the sibling thread about the differences between Opinion (responsible for editorials, and subject of the NPR article) and news department (does reporting on actual news journalism). Opinion & News have different org charts under the WaPo banner. In my prior comment, A = disclosures in journalism, B = disclosures in editorials. They are not the same thing in a way that can be applied to a singular Bernie.

> They don't say, we have no numbers and without numbers or any sort of relative comparison we have no way to gauge whether the current behavior is or is not worrisome.

The number of op-eds are a small part on this article about the vibe-shift at the Washington Post: NPR provided additional context with the words of people who used to work there, mentioned thr waves of resignations and subscriber cancellations, noted WaPo declined to comment on this story. Make of that what you may.

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

#142

Post by whimsicalism »

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 newsroom is probably the best national reporting entity, but sure

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

#143

Post by throwworhtthrow »

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.

The same week that WaPo announced their new editorial policy, I added a uBlock Origin rule to delete the opinion sidebar. It's basically ads run by Jeff Bezos now. There's no reason to expose oneself to it.

Their news reporting is, for now, still decent (and retains its familiar slant).

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

#144

Post by bpt3 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #76
ecshafer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would right-wing leaning think tanks be complaining about right wing authoritarianism they’re in favor of? You’d expect them to trot out this verbiage if a populist left wing politician with authoritarian vibes came to power.

You can identify and complain about right wing (or left wing) authoritarianism without hurling insults.

A publication failing to do so is a key indication of bias in a specific direction.

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

#145

Post by burkaman »

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…

They do disclose them when they are relevant to a story. For example, https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/nx-s1-5564684/macarthur-overd... and https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/04/15/nx-s1.... They also mention them very frequently on air, anybody who has listened to NPR for more than like ten minutes probably heard them mention the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

You can see a full list of donors in their latest annual report: https://media.npr.org/documents/about/annualreports/2024%20A...

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

#146

Post by Larrikin »

next_xibalba wrote: post #77
hobs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really we're all just interested in what your line for calling a person a fascist is, and what you would call the folks who did this? "When the Pentagon announced that reporters would only be credentialed if they pledged not to report on documents not expressly released by official press handlers, free press advocates, including FAIR (9/23/25), denounced the directive as an assault on the First Amendment. The impact…

Yeah, my line for calling someone fascist is not “restricting reporters access to the Pentagon”. It cheapens the word and all that it represents. There is a wide gulf between writing with basic clarity and injecting opinions like “so and so is a toady”. I would love to see media outlets attempt to describe just the facts with as little opinion as possible. FAIR clearly does not meet that bar.

In what scenario does a fascist not restrict freedom of the press as one of their steps?

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

#147

Post by findthewords »

softwaredoug wrote: post #138
IIAOPSW wrote: post #132

Its impressive how well Bezos has convinced everyone to stop trusting WaPo rather than WaPo convincing everyone to trust Bezos. A paper owned by a wealthy financial interest was hardly unique or novel at the time he took them over, and no one would have been more concerned about it than they already were, and all he had to do was not be overt in his influence and bias of it, but he couldn't refrain.

These billionaires don't have a solid feedback loop back to reality

Think about the world's poorest man, and how disconnected he is from the rest of humanity. Now think of the world's richest man. They are equally disconnected.

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

senderista wrote: post #64
jonas21 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by atmosx »

softwaredoug wrote: post #138
IIAOPSW wrote: post #132

Its impressive how well Bezos has convinced everyone to stop trusting WaPo rather than WaPo convincing everyone to trust Bezos. A paper owned by a wealthy financial interest was hardly unique or novel at the time he took them over, and no one would have been more concerned about it than they already were, and all he had to do was not be overt in his influence and bias of it, but he couldn't refrain.

These billionaires don't have a solid feedback loop back to reality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBZTHxZvOwg - this show was soooo good...

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

#150

Post by coliveira »

donohoe wrote: post #127
coliveira wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You just don't understand how money works. Foundations are as political as any other organization in the capitalist world.
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