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Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

cnbc.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#181

Post by bogantech »

coldpie wrote: post #16
Molitor5901 wrote: post #11

To play Devils Advocate for a moment: Why do we need, or even want, a newspaper to endorse a President? How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?

I actually agree with you, newspapers really shouldn't be doing this. Our major local paper in the Twin Cities basically torched its reputation by endorsing wildly unqualified candidates for city offices (like, one guy they endorsed for Minneapolis city council didn't even live in Minneapolis). They recently decided to stop doing endorsements at all, which I think is the right decision. But that's not what happened h…

> But that's not what happened here. The editors did their normal endorsement process, but the owner of the paper stepped in and personally overrode their process for this one particular endorsement.

He owns the paper, they just work there.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#183

Post by smeeger »

moduspol wrote: post #52

More interesting to me is that this is the third tech billionaire to take a decidedly different stance than he did previously. Musk is quite active, but even Zuckerberg took a much more neutral stance for 2024. Honestly I'm more surprised that Bezos even bothered. Does he really think the endorsement of The Washington Post editorial board is so significant that it's worth intervening? That seems implausible.

of course it is. endorsements by major entities such as major newspapers… endorsements by celebrities and all these other points form the constellation of how a candidate is perceived. a huge chunk of people will not just vote blindly for whoever seems to be more broadly supported but actually deeply like whoever is put in front of them. and they will also believe it if a bunch of newspapers release the same story at the same time… even if there is no evidence offered to support the main assertion. or even if its obviously false. creation of the appearance of a consensus is an extremely powerful tool

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#184

Post by rKarpinski »

staplers wrote: post #121
throwaway918299 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

they go after him Would love to hear what horrible consequences you think Elon is facing..

They retroactively invalidated several years of compensation packages...

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#185

Post by 93po »

coreload wrote: post #162
ahnick wrote: post #76

It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neutral as possible.

These are opinion editors. They're expected to have opinions.

maybe biased opinions should be entirely separate from journalistic enterprises if those journalists want a single shred of credibility. people are mad at trump supporters and anti covid and anti vax stuff, and while i agree that's all stupid, i don't blame them at all for falling for it because main stream corporate journalism has destroyed any and all trust with absolutely everyone. maybe if we weren't constantly being lied to and sold something, more people would believe them when they say important things like "trump is taking away reproductive rights" and "covid exists and people are dying"

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#186

Post by drukenemo »

neves wrote: post #132
ahnick wrote: post #76

It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neutral as possible.

First, they are never neutral. Second: this is what happens in Brazil. Everybody gets angry because each news outlet defends its own conservative candidate.

Are you saying that the largest media complex in Brazil, Globo, supports conservative candidates? Where and how?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#187

Post by crummy »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #158
TylerE wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All signs point to this being an extraordinarily tight election. 5 or 10k votes in the right state could swing the whole thing.

[flagged]

The polls show Harris and Trump are neck and neck, but the only explanation for a Harris win is fraud?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#188

Post by [deleted] »

93po wrote: post #185
coreload wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are opinion editors. They're expected to have opinions.

maybe biased opinions should be entirely separate from journalistic enterprises if those journalists want a single shred of credibility. people are mad at trump supporters and anti covid and anti vax stuff, and while i agree that's all stupid, i don't blame them at all for falling for it because main stream corporate journalism has destroyed any and all trust with absolutely everyone. maybe if we weren't constantly b…

[deleted]

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#189

Post by ajross »

93po wrote: post #185
coreload wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are opinion editors. They're expected to have opinions.

maybe biased opinions should be entirely separate from journalistic enterprises if those journalists want a single shred of credibility. people are mad at trump supporters and anti covid and anti vax stuff, and while i agree that's all stupid, i don't blame them at all for falling for it because main stream corporate journalism has destroyed any and all trust with absolutely everyone. maybe if we weren't constantly b…

That's a fair point. But in this case it wasn't a principled stand against the idea of opinion journalism[1]. It was an act to kill an in-progress editorial piece days before publication, for quite clearly partisan reasons (though most people believe Bezos did it out of fear and not affinity, he'd presumably prefer Trump loses, but doesn't want to be in the line of fire if he doesn't).

[1] Which, let's be honest, is pervasive and popular. You aren't simultaneously arguing to kick Hannity off the air, right?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#190

Post by Dalewyn »

maxerickson wrote: post #124
Molitor5901 wrote: post #11

To play Devils Advocate for a moment: Why do we need, or even want, a newspaper to endorse a President? How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?

It's not automatically unethical for a journalist to advocate for something. I guess if they entirely stopped publishing self authored editorials it might be "neutral" to not publish a particular one. But that isn't what is happening.

A journalist's job is to journal something, nothing more and nothing less.

If a purported journalist wants to influence or otherwise lead his audience somewhere, he is many things (commentator, advocate, activist, influencer, etc.) but he is not a journalist.

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