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

Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 1001 posts

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#261

Post by kcplate »

bogantech wrote: post #181
coldpie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly it’s surprising to me that people really think that the news side of a media company operates with complete autonomy from the business side. They might claim it exists but that’s a fallacy.

I worked at a major daily newspaper 30 years ago and I personally know of two cases in my short tenure there where news stories were killed because they didn’t want to piss off important advertisers. I am also aware of a story involving a family member of one of the executives that was let’s say “barely” reported. Other local media organizations interestingly had much more detail than we carried.

News has always been and will always be first—a business.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#262

Post by bigstrat2003 »

oivey wrote: post #180
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.

Why would they want to appear neutral? All news reporting, no matter what, is inherently biased in some way. There isn’t some “ideal” where that isn’t the case. There can’t be some magical font of unbiased information because just selecting what stories to put on the front page introduces bias. News can’t be unbiased and being unbiased was never a goal. News is meant to inform, which includes facts as well as analysi…

That just isn't true. It is possible to be unbiased in journalism, and it was a major goal of journalists at various times in history. Obviously not all journalists at all times have striven towards this goal, but some have. Stop making excuses for blatant partisanship, instead hold them to a higher standard.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#263

Post by Dalewyn »

sleepybrett wrote: post #237
Dalewyn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These are not journalists, these are the OPINION EDITORS. You know, the op-ed page, the page that contains NO journalism. It has been a long tradition for the OPINION EDITORS of newspapers to endorse one or more positions of various political races, especially the presidential race.

This is regarding endorsements by the outlet as a whole. If someone wants to go out and publicly endorse a candidate on their own name, nobody's stopping them.

What Bezos did is say, no, you cannot and will never again slap the Washington Post's name onto your personal endorsement. I think that's fair, he owns the brand, and I think it's also good for journalism overall because it's not a journalist's job to push opinions.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#266

Post by krick »

daft_pink wrote: post #34

Is anyone really changing their mind based on some newspaper endorsement? I’m pretty sure everyone knows who they’re gonna vote for at this point.

This really is an interesting question. You are asking it rhetorically, and it's not like I'm going to argue with the implication, that it "basically doesn't matter", but then one could ask the same about Trump working at McDonald's as a part of his campaign, and pretty much about everything these guys do. Unless it's a major fuckup, it almost doesn't matter, because it doesn't convert anybody but one hypothetical guy who says "you know what, I'll pick a random newspaper right now, and the first guy I'm gonna see, I'll vote for him!"

At some level of approximation it doesn't even matter who the candidate is at all. An established trend in the USA is that the public is divided pretty much 50/50 between 2 colors, and hardly sways no matter what happens. Which makes it all pretty laughable way to make the choice (seeing votes as weights, and God makes a choice using these weights to make a decision) on an important question. If we assume the elections in the USA are "fair", it's pretty much flipping a coin every time. (But then, most people are already settled on the idea that it isn't an important choice, hence the "giant douche and turd sandwich" joke is so relatable.)

So while it largely doesn't matter indeed, at some low enough level any small detail might matter. I don't imagine who is that guy who was going to vote Kamala based on WP endorsement, but, well, maybe there is one. Really, I have no idea.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#267

Post by sleepybrett »

jmcclell wrote: post #62

It makes sense in so much as "it's a risk to our business to endorse Harris because of the risk of falling afoul of Trump's vindictive nature should he win." From a fiduciary standpoint, I agree with that assessment. From the standpoint of a citizen, I find the implication alarming. I do believe that this is the reasoning behind the decision, but it is certainly speculation on my part.

You are forgetting that the ftc is looking at amazon under biden, one would hope that harris will keep kahn in the post (because she's kicking asses that have been needed to be kicked for 30+ years).

I think he's in a bad place. If he endorses trump he's endorsing a potential fascist dictator. If he endorses harris he's contributing to amazon's anti-trust peril.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#268

Post by oivey »

user3939382 wrote: post #213
oivey wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they want to appear neutral? All news reporting, no matter what, is inherently biased in some way. There isn’t some “ideal” where that isn’t the case. There can’t be some magical font of unbiased information because just selecting what stories to put on the front page introduces bias. News can’t be unbiased and being unbiased was never a goal. News is meant to inform, which includes facts as well as analysi…

You’re suggesting there’s no difference between journalism that attempts objectivity and outright political advocacy which is clearly false. Perfect neutrality doesn’t exist, we can even get into a discussion of what knowledge is, that doesn’t mean news outlets don’t have an obligation to try. They did in decades past which is evident from a review of older journalism.

What older journalism are you talking about? Cold War era Cronkite? The era of endless red scares and other very obviously biased behavior?

WaPo has been giving out endorsements since the 70s. The era you’re pining for never existed.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#269

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

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 wouldn’t be interesting or newsworthy to me personally if they had done that.

Given that editorial boards at newspapers like WaPo traditionally do, I find it notable when the billionaire owner steps in to stop them from publishing the endorsement, due to fear of retaliation from one of the candidates.

To me, that’s worth knowing about.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#270

Post by voltaireodactyl »

SavageBeast wrote: post #170
neves wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the the billionaire owner of the newspaper is censoring it, not the number of votes that will change.

Is it censorship when your boss forbids you publishing your personal opinion as the official position of his company? It's funny reading the comments here but has anyone considered that Bezos may in fact support Trump? Bezos is a billionaire and Harris seeks to target them to fix the deficit. Its just possible Bezos supports Trump and it makes economic sense too, though its terribly unfashionable to come out and say…

Yes. Censoring is an action, the power dynamic at play is not relevant to whether something is or is not censoring. What you’re asking is “is this specific act of censorship somehow immoral or illegal?” And the answer is no, as I expect you already believe.

But it wasn’t censored for no reason, and it’s entirely reasonable to question the motives that led to this specific act of censorship.

Post reply on HN