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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

#481

Post by rightbyte »

calf wrote: post #444
rightbyte wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think neutrality serves the powerful. Neutrality serves the 'truth' otherwise it wouldn't be neutral in the first place. Your point only stands if you assume that the partial source would side with the 'good' side on average. And being perfectly neutral is not possible, no.

Neutrality is problematic because in practice it serves the powerful, like every instance of bureaucracy and scientism we can point to through civilized history. Instead you are appealing to some politics-free context-free notion of neutrality which might as well be a made up word then. Humans and institutions are not truth objects, so your incorrect argument is in conflating this with a discussion of access to truth…

The powerful by definition control us. Otherwise they wouldn't be powerful. I don't see your point. To me the notion of trying to be neutral seem to give the powerful less power than being "political".

I.e. it is better if the puppets think they are living in a fair democracy, since they might act like they do, decreasing the power of the puppet masters. The opposite is concepts like the series "House of cards", that instruct people to play the game and be "political".

I define "neutral" as loosely "trying to not be biased".

Like, for example, pretending until it became way over the top too embarrassing that the president is mentally fit for another 4 year of any work, is a good example of being "political" about it.

Gaslighting that backfired badly.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#482

Post by wannacboatmovie »

I've yet to see an argument against this not delivered in bad faith.

If the publication in question was the NY Post, Washington Times, or another center-right newspaper, the very same group currently having a collective meltdown on social media would be praising them with an equally melodramatic "saving democracy" or some other manufactured phrase du jour.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#483

Post by strunz »

wordofx wrote: post #427
zmmmmm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endorsements are published by the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper so to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. Opinion and analysis has always been part of news publications, and plays an accepted role in adding layers of interpretation onto the raw "facts" that is crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert i…

[flagged]

He lies about absolutely everything, so everything he says should be met with skepticism.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#484

Post by ww520 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #312
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?

Endorsements are published by the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper so to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. Opinion and analysis has always been part of news publications, and plays an accepted role in adding layers of interpretation onto the raw "facts" that is crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert i…

If it were the editor's opinion, how is it any different from the opinion of anybody off the street? Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#485

Post by krapp »

ww520 wrote: post #484
zmmmmm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endorsements are published by the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper so to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. Opinion and analysis has always been part of news publications, and plays an accepted role in adding layers of interpretation onto the raw "facts" that is crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert i…

If it were the editor's opinion, how is it any different from the opinion of anybody off the street? Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions?

>Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions?

Because they work for the newspaper and that's part of their job?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#486

Post by angoragoats »

dotnet00 wrote: post #365
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.

"There is no neutrality in the face of evil" This is said by both sides, it is equally stupid every time. If ethics are pretty universal, how is it that one party wants no abortions at all and thinks any abortion that isn't absolutely medically necessary is evil and the other party wants abortions right up until viable birth and thinks that anything less than that is evil? Especially when considering that most of the…

One party wants to end _all_ abortions, _including_ those that might be medically necessary. They are pro-forced-birth, and pro-killing-women.

You’ve got the position of the other party wrong as well, but I’m not going to even bother correcting that because if you don’t find the above completely vile there’s no helping you.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#487

Post by toofy »

batch12 wrote: post #127
krapp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is worse, a newspaper expressing an opinion or a newspaper being forbidden from expressing an opinion?

Forbidden by whom? Forbidden by its owner vs forbidden by an external party like the government are two different situations.

the article says when trump was president , he interfered and caused bezos’ business to lose a government contract due to the newspaper’s coverage of trump.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#488

Post by rozap »

screye wrote: post #467

The Venn diagram of those who'd be influenced by a WaPo endorsement and committed Kamala Harris voters is a perfect intersection. For 50 years, WaPo has endorsed the democratic candidate [1] for president. No mystery here. It's a pointless endorsement. [1] https://noahveltman.com/endorsements/

And it opens to them up to retribution from Trump if he wins, which is his entire method of operating. From a game theory perspective it doesn't make sense for them to do an endorsement when a mob boss type character is about to get elected.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#489

Post by FactKnower69 »

roenxi wrote: post #212
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…

[flagged]

>But the newspaper could be biased towards facts, moderate speech and empathy to all parties.

literally zero semantic meaning to be found in this word salad

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#490

Post by noirbot »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #482

I've yet to see an argument against this not delivered in bad faith. If the publication in question was the NY Post, Washington Times, or another center-right newspaper, the very same group currently having a collective meltdown on social media would be praising them with an equally melodramatic "saving democracy" or some other manufactured phrase du jour.

I'm really not sure of this. The argument I've mostly seen is that the endorsement was always mostly meaningless. If anything, this is a "coverup worse than the crime" situation. Killing the endorsement is much more notable than just letting it happen because it's what everyone was worried about when Bezos bought the paper - that he'd inject his own consideration into it, something he said he wouldn't do. If some billionaire owned the NY Post and banned them from endorsing Trump, that would absolutely be a story as well.

I don't think anyone thinks it's not clear who the writers at the NY Post or the Washington Post generally want to win. That makes this whole situation so much more stupid on Bezos's part.

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