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Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

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Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#291
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Washington Post has endorsed a candidate every election cycle since 1976, with the exception of 1988. The New York Times has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since its founding in 1851.

yes. its always been done and therefore is good! …?

What was said was: "In the 90s newspapers made an effort to not endorse candidates to appear unbiased".

This was countered with "endorsements have been a thing since long before the 90s".

Previous poster didn't say anything about what's "good" or "bad". They pointed out a claim was incorrect.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#292
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What does any of this rambling about Harris and the NBC have to do with the fact that 14 members of Trump's former administration (including one general) have agreed that Trump is an outright fascist in an open letter?

Slight correction - 3 Generals off the top of my head (Kelly, Mattis, and Milley)

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#293
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…

Another point that just occurred to me: Who is the endorsement supposed to influence? I think in America at least, the national media has become so hyper partisan in the eyes of its readers, that an endorsement of a newspaper is really just preaching to the crowd. What difference does that endorsement really make? At the national level, I don't think it really makes a difference if a newspaper endorses a candidate fo…

It influences no one, but it sends a pretty loud message to the Democratic party that (now two, LATimes did same thing) normally reliable media orgs have lost confidence in the democrat party’s ability to bring forth a competitive candidate against Donald Trump.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#294
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, that is censorship. It used to be unpopular around here. Maybe you’re fine with it when an anointed shareholder does it, but that’s what it is.

It’s a big deal that a major historic news organization’s editorial board is overruled by the owner, whether or not you agree with the decision.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#295

There is definitely a quiet support among the faang owners for Trump.

There's been so much focus on education as the new fault line in American politics. And though it is huge, and the less educated increasingly do support ultra-conservative policies, I think the even bigger fault line is across genders. And tech workers, though usually well educated, skew dramatically male and those degrees and salaries don't make them immune to the growing culture of male grievance and victimhood.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#296
Newspapers publish opinions for the same reason that they publish comic strips: people want to read them. Readers seek them out. Newspapers are a business and have to give their customers what they want.

The problematic aspect here is that the current business owner, Jeff Bezos, has a conflict of interest. Bezos is making a bad business decision for The Washington Post, sacrificing it and losing readers for the sake of his other business interests, i.e., government contracts. It's unlikely that an independent owner with no conflict of interest would make the same decision.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opi…

Given general hypocrisy, I expect an R endorsement come 2028. When the "swamp" is cleared and Bezo's Ai can write his opinions ghosting as a "journalist" with a respected brand.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#298

I like this trend of taking neutral positions that seems to be picking up again, although the timing for this doesn't look good. Just as how universities are starting to adopt neutrality, so should news outlets.

Endorsements come opinions editors, a special part of the paper where the paper prints opinions, not news. I agree that it would be nice if news outlets tried to always be neutral, but a lot of TV news channels in the US would have almost nothing to say if you stopped their opinion reporting.

If they have nothing to say, maybe nobody needs to hear it.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#299

I like this trend of taking neutral positions that seems to be picking up again, although the timing for this doesn't look good. Just as how universities are starting to adopt neutrality, so should news outlets.

"What is truth?" asked the powerful Roman governor of Judea, of a man accused of blasphemy two millennia ago, and we still don't know. What is "neutrality" for a university? Is creationism "neutral"? It was a huge political deal in the US for decades (though it seems to have died down recently), but in the 1980's, 1990's, and into the 2000's there were plenty of people who wanted creationism taught in science classes, or at least to "teach the controversy." Was picking sides on that topic in science class "neutral"?

Is the superiority of phonics based literacy approaches "neutral" or criticism of teachers unions? If a economics professors research indicates that, say, supply-side economics doesn't work under current circumstances, is it "neutral" for her to tell her class that? If a law professor thinks that judges only make ad hoc arguments to achieve whatever ends they desire, can they teach their class legal nihilism?

"Neutral" is the sort of thing that someone who has never actually tried to teach or inform can think is reasonable, until you actually try and do it and realize that there are people out there who strongly want to contest whether the earth is round, and that either you throw up your hands and accept epistemological nihilism or you accept that you have to pick sides, and try and do a good job of picking the right sides.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#300
post #151

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 don't know for sure, but I suspect that this phenomenon of news media endorsing political candidates is almost entirely unique to the US. Please prove me wrong.

It's common practice across the anglosphere (US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ). I'm not sure about elsewhere.
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