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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

#201

Post by ignoramous »

Dalewyn wrote: post #190
maxerickson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If a purported journalist wants to influence ... he is not a journalist

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

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#202

Post by nkrisc »

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…

Pretending there exists “unbiased” journalism is silly. All journalism is biased to some degree. The worthwhile categorization is to what degree the bias exists.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#203

Post by vagab0nd »

greenthrow wrote: post #165

So many times HN posters have extolled how Bezos hasn't interfered with the WaPo and those of us who expressed concern about his purchase were chicken littles. It has never been true and it's plain as day now. He bought it for the same reason Musk bought Twitter. To have control over a media outlet he values.

If you have that kind of money, why wouldn't you do that?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#204

Post by pstuart »

lerjan wrote: post #173
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.

[flagged]

So you're suggesting the fresh incompetence will improve things?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#205

Post by maxerickson »

Dalewyn wrote: post #190
maxerickson wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Declaring your misunderstanding doesn't make it so.

"Engineers make implements of war" or so.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#206

Post by Eumenes »

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.

100%. People upset about this are just upset cause they didn't endorse their candidate. Trust in media/journalism is at an all time low. This is simply a smart move to not alienate 50% of the population. If individual editors/writers/journalists want to endorse someone, take it to your blog or website or twitter.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#209

Post by futureshock »

nextworddev wrote: post #140

He knows something

Yes we can infer. His political leanings are fairly Democrat. His media puppet is very left leaning. He didn’t announce this policy years ago when it would have been a nothing burger, instead just a couple weeks before the election as a splashy egg on face moment.

I can smell fish. His best information is that he was backing the wrong horse and now he is scrambling to contain the damage. Because it’s also quite a slap to the Harris campaign, he must not think much of their chances or sees a very, very asymmetrical risk profile here. Snub versus scorched earth.

We are going to be in for a very interesting four years.

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