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?
There's no neutral human being.
[flagged]
Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#392To 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 a disingenuous question: newspapers endorse presidents. That ship has sailed and it’s sailed a long time ago. The issue at hand here is what happens to objective news reporting when a rampant vindictive psychopath enters the office of the President.
[flagged]
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there is no support for that in the article. Untrue. At the top, "KEY POINTS: In a 2019 lawsuit, Amazon claimed it lost a $10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft because Trump used “improper pressure ... to harm his perceived political enemy” Bezos."
[flagged]
> We cannot deduce Bezos’ motives from Trump’s vengefulness.
Why not?
You personally can refrain from any speculation, if you wish, but it's nonetheless the most obvious explanation. Moreover, your own speculation is implausible:
> perhaps this is a return to more profitable and credible roots.
This last-minute backpedaling makes The Washington Post look much worse than an endorsement. The new non-endorsement "policy" wasn't announced in advance. It came only after the editors had already drafted an endorsement of Harris, and at least one editor resigned as a result. The Post now appears less credible rather than more.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#394Earlier 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…
It takes a lot time to build the reputation of impartiality. To be honest only BBC comes into mind when I think about a somewhat impartial medium. What I see is a traditionally Democartic leaning newspaper, choosing "impartiality" as an excuse, because they cannot come out and support Republicans. And of course I believe that this is the choice of the owner.
The problem for BBC is that it's government-funded. It can't really take a stance without potentially upsetting the next government.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#395It is ironic because Washington Post is the most left leaning of all major news paper. Their endorsement is really a no-op, because there is really only one candidate they could ever consider.
And yet here we are without an endorsement. Significant by your own admission.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#396I like that many people here have speculated that Bezos simply wants to avoid the ire of a possible Trump administration. This is very charitable, so much so that it ignores another reasonable guess a person could make based off of the same objective information that we all have — that this action is an endorsement, and the person that chose to endorse a candidate did so because he wants them to win.
On one hand you can imagine that Bezos somehow wants a Harris presidency but doesn’t want to appear that way out of fear, but that sounds more fantastical and wishful than “The guy whose company is currently trying to wholesale eliminate the National Labor Relations Board(1) likes Trump’s policies and wants him to win”, especially when you think about what’s going on with the other guy(2) that’s trying to destroy the NLRB.
Sometimes when people indicate they want something to happen it is because they want that thing to happen.
1
https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-joins-companies-ar...
2
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-leaps-into-the-meme-history-bo...
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has anyone brought that up? In the current administration? In the campaign?
what happens behind closed doors is entirely different than what makes the papers. i am positive bezos has spoken to trump, and i am positive trump assured bezos of something that harris did not
A rational person would know that many past promises or reassurances offered by Donald Trump have proved to be empty, worthless and even costly to their recipients, as documented by countless legal actions.
If Bezos believes what Trump has told him behind closed doors, then his companies are in the control of a sucker, not just a coward.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#398Newspapers 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…
> Newspapers are a business and have to give their customers what they want.
This is true, but it shouldn't be viewed as unproblematic. Audience capture is a huge problem, and news organizations telling their audience what they here to the point that people get siloed in their own echo chambers is one of the main reasons why things are such a mess.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#399To 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?
Which is worse, a newspaper expressing an opinion or a newspaper being forbidden from expressing an opinion?
[flagged]
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
He's said he wants to be a dictator on day one, has told his supporters that they won't have to vote again after this election, has said he will prosecute his political opponents, has said that Harris voters should be afraid of saying they support her, etc, etc. What more do you need?!
[dead]