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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

#371

Post by janalsncm »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #283
ignoramous wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a purported journalist wants to influence ... he is not a journalist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advocacy_journalism

That seems to just describe activism, not journalism. What makes it journalism to you - the association with a company that punishes a newspaper?

That’s a pretty low bar for “activism” in my mind. Activism is more about organizing people, organizing events, coordinating action, raising money, protesting, etc. although good journalism enables activism.

The entire point of journalism is holding powerful people/groups accountable. This is why countries like China hate journalists. Big companies like “journalists” who don’t ask tough questions. But the job of journalism isn’t just to reprint a press release with slightly different phrasing.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#372

Post by zeroonetwothree »

tvaughan wrote: post #349
vr46 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no neutrality in the face of evil. Journalism and journalists are not supposed to be neutral, but impartial . Ethics are pretty universal.

Well said. Journalists also don’t have to give equal weight to the other side when the other side are whackadoodles

Unfortunately both sides seem to think this of the other side equally.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#374

Post by nickff »

standardUser wrote: post #341
nickff wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be implying that he made a decision based on other business interests, against those of the Post, but there is no support for that in the article. Do you have a source which describes this motive? It seems like not endorsing candidates might be good for the Washington Post's business, by improving its perceived impartiality. In addition to this, the WaPo seems to have spent much of its history not endorsi…

Trump has repeatedly threatened media companies he thinks have wronged him with specific actions he's said he will take as president. Bezos has a whole business empire to worry about that goes way beyond WaPo. He doesn't need a petty president trying to wreck his bottom line for 4 years. And with a business that big, Trump has a lot of ways he could cause trouble.

This is definitely a potential motive, but there are many of those, and we have no reason to believe this is actually what led to Bezos’ decision.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#375

Post by ZeroGravitas »

standardUser wrote: post #295
coding123 wrote: post #6

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.

Tech workers are Democratic. Tech owners and high level executives are right wing.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#376

Post by quesera »

ajross wrote: post #276
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.

> 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. Clearly Bezos thinks they are[1], otherwise he wouldn't have gone through the trouble of killing it 11 days before an election. People in this thread are badly conflating the idea of "Newspaper Opinion Journalism is Bad" with "It's OK for an owner to arbitrarily influenc…

> "Bezos thinks that Trump thinks they are"

This is the key.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#377

Post by defen »

jeffbee wrote: post #222
janalsncm wrote: post #144

> CNBC has requested comment from Amazon. According to the article, Jeff Bezos is presumably afraid that Trump would continue to punish Amazon. If that is the case, this seems like an entirely futile exercise. Not that corporate PR responses are ever particularly illuminating. I read an article regarding information conveyed per syllable. English was near the top. Languages with less information per syllable like Spa…

Imagine taking as many steroids as Jeff Bezos has taken, only to end up being afraid of an obese elderly man who cheats at golf. What was the point of all that flexing?

Maybe he's afraid Kamala Harris will champion an unrealized capital gains tax.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#378

Post by willturman »

packetlost wrote: post #356
vr46 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no neutrality in the face of evil. Journalism and journalists are not supposed to be neutral, but impartial . Ethics are pretty universal.

> Ethics are pretty universal Anyone who has taken a basic philosophy or ethics class or read more than the summary page of their history books knows this is not even remotely true

Counterpoint: But surely you must not understand my ethics.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#379

Post by standardUser »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #375
standardUser wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tech workers are Democratic. Tech owners and high level executives are right wing.

> Tech workers are Democratic

Not one hundred percent of them. And many tech execs are liberal. I'm talking about the larger demographic trends.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#380

Post by benatkin »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #107
benatkin wrote: post #41

So they aren't going to endorse either candidate. If I didn't have context about the situation, I'd say it makes sense. However I think that in this flawed two-party situation, there is unfairness on both sides, resulting in some sort of balance, and it's bad that one of the richest people on earth could upset the balance in this way, especially at the last moment. Article from 2020: https://www.washingtonpost.com/op…

Yeah, I think you’re missing the point a bit here: the fear of endorsing the “wrong” candidate, as it would lead to loss of profit by the owning company, is what led to the axing of the endorsement. Call it what you want: profit and political strongarming silenced a newspaper.

You could have created a top-level comment instead of replying to mine. I don't see how your reply is about my take on it and isn't just your completely different take on the issue.
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