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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

#491

Post by mandevil »

rightbyte wrote: post #481
calf wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am biased against creationism being treated as science. And that is correct, because one side is true and the other is false and should not be taught or treated equally.

So I think either your definition is wrong or your goal of neutrality is wrong.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#493

Post by noirbot »

rozap wrote: post #488
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.

Let's be clear who "them" is. It's Bezos. The people at the paper wrote up the whole thing and then were blocked by Bezos and the CEO of the paper.

You can argue it's game-theory sensible, but it certainly tells you that Bezos doesn't care to put any of his vast money at risk for any cause at all.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#494

Post by rufus_foreman »

lapcat wrote: post #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…

[flagged]

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#495

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #385
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you're mostly right, but there are no doubt a few still on the fence, which can only either be people who have not been exposed to the truth about Trump (e.g. people who only watch Trump sane-washed sources like Fox), or republicans who are well aware of the danger he poses, but are having a hard time accepting that the responsible thing to do is vote against him. For the few that are still on the fence, the…

I haven’t decided myself. My vote doesn’t especially matter because of the state I live in but I do like to vote as an experience. It’s not that I particularly like Trump as an individual (quite the opposite), but Harris is just very unappealing to me from a policy standpoint. I do think that the Hitler comparison undermines any point you are trying to make so maybe tone it down a bit.

This isn't a normal election, or anything remotely close to it. It'd be lovely if we had TWO relatively normal candidates and could vote for them in our normal partisan ways.

You may have noticed that basically everyone in Trumps first term cabinet has come out and called him things ranging from "moron" to "fascist" to a "danger to the country". This is not normal. It's extremely abnormal. It's a warning to the country.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#496

Post by zmmmmm »

smsm42 wrote: post #451
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…

The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population, that allows them ecxlusive ability to properly understand current events, seems to have no factual support at all. They are professionals in giving their opinions, it doesn't make their opinions be better that anybody else's. Experience suggests they are usually worse.

> The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population

That doesn't make sense to me - they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. You can criticise the end result, but I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion than the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training and tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#498

Post by generalizations »

krapp wrote: post #485
ww520 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Then we're right back to the original question:

> How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#499

Post by lucb1e »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #219
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.

Being neutral in the face of a candidate who has promised to do what Trump has promised to do may not be the virtue you think it is.

I would read "neutral" here to mean "factual" rather than endorsing trump as part of being neutral or something. If one party proposes e.g. impossible things or financially stupid things or whatever it may be (general examples from politics anywhere), that can and should be reported on and would not break neutrality

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#500

Post by wannacboatmovie »

noirbot wrote: post #490
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 bil…

> Killing the endorsement is much more notable than just letting it happen

It's only notable because the staff was upset and leaked the backstory in retaliation. A newspaper is a business; it's not the town square. Imagine working for a company and going public every time your boss did something you disagreed with.

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