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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

#571

Post by smsm42 »

fma wrote: post #528
smsm42 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So - cancel the opinion section while we're at it I guess?

Well, US is still a somewhat free country, so anybody can publish any opinion they want to publish, anytime they want to. I have nothing against that, in fact, I must admit I am guilty of it myself - I have a blog where I publish my opinions. It would be very hypocritical to me to deny anybody else the vices I enjoy myself. I think just realizing those people aren't better or worse than anybody else and do not deserve any special consideration is enough.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#572

Post by roenxi »

thimabi wrote: post #556
carbatterylife wrote: post #331

[flagged]

> Couldn't a simple answer here be that he felt Kamala is unqualified and terrible and as a newspaper with a lot of readership and influence, he decided against endorsing her? Sure, but why should the personal opinion of the owner of the newspaper prevail over the opinion of the editorial staff?

Because they own the newspaper. The question answers itself. There isn't any reason some random employee should have their opinion privileged over the owner. Or vice versa, to be fair, but the joy of being an owner is being able to pull rank.

If an owner can't get decisions made in a way that is favourable to them then there are very real questions about whether they are, in fact, owning the company.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#573

Post by noirbot »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #500
noirbot wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also, do you seriously think any more right wing paper wouldn't have leaked it if their owner had prevented them from endorsing? That if their owner had come in saying he preferred Harris and they couldn't endorse Trump that they'd have just gone home like "Hey, free market, he's rich, that's how it works?" Half of major right wing media is run by people whose whole identity is "a major paper said I couldn't write what I wanted so I quit and wrote what I wanted anyway". Getting "canceled" by a major newspaper is pretty much the #1 way to end up rich on Substack these days. They go around parading how much they're "free speech advocates" because they "won't let the rich elites decide what I can write" but suddenly when the rich elites are suppressing an endorsement of a more left candidate it's "it's bad faith and retaliatory to speak out about the rich deciding what you can publish".

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#574

Post by bogantech »

thimabi wrote: post #556
carbatterylife wrote: post #331

[flagged]

> Couldn't a simple answer here be that he felt Kamala is unqualified and terrible and as a newspaper with a lot of readership and influence, he decided against endorsing her? Sure, but why should the personal opinion of the owner of the newspaper prevail over the opinion of the editorial staff?

Because he owns the paper and they don't

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#575

Post by smsm42 »

bjtitus wrote: post #506
smsm42 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would seem to negate the entire point of any editorial column then, right? If we don't care about their opinion, what's the point of reading in the first place?

Well, somebody may care, and by random chance or a strike of luck they may just hire somebody whose opinion is worth hearing... I am just saying we shouldn't assume it upfront just because there's a bunch of guys that is paid for doing it. If there's a blog on the internet and it is interesting, I read it. If not, I ignore it. I don't stand in awe or cower in reverence just because some guy has a blog. Same should be done for opinion pages - it should be afforded reverence only after proving its worth, not upfront.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#576

Post by hluska »

lysace wrote: post #151
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?

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.

The Globe and Mail is a Canadian paper. Here is its history of endorsements since 1984:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/federal-electi...

There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted only to endorsements in the 2024 United Kingdom general election:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2024_Uni...

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#577

Post by dotnet00 »

calf wrote: post #431
dotnet00 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how motivated reasoning and a poltics poisoned mind can be used to make obvious points out to be unreasonable. Institutional neutrality is simple, the organization does what is ncessary to operate, but doesn't prescribe anything unnecessarily over that. It does not mean that professors are not allowed to talk about disagreeable things that are required for teaching the subject. If anything, it makes it e…

What backwater high school did you go to that had you study creationism of all religions? We never covered propaganda in science, in Canada.

Calling an important aspect of most cultures as "propaganda" is rich. You don't have to be religious (I'm not religious and wasn't religious at that time either) to recognize that it's useful to understand those beliefs and how we worked our way to the modern age. That's how you help students to learn our current understanding of the world such that they are less susceptible to eating up blatant lies and believing that school was just indoctrinating them.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#578

Post by noirbot »

rozap wrote: post #565
noirbot wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes but we know this about him.

Sure, but let's not pretend the writers at the paper are deciding this is better for their future. And let's not even give Bezos the grace that this is about if the Post succeeds. It's clear this is about if Amazon or Blue Origin gets contracts in the future under Trump and he's willing to burn down the Post to avoid that downside.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#579

Post by chrisco255 »

Endorsements have never been without the blessing and influence of the owner of that paper or institution. The extent that an owner lets the editorial team pick an endorsement is the same extent to which they align philosophically. It's an illusion of choice or independence.

If papers were meant to be more neutral, I suppose they would need to be owned as cooperatives by the subscribers themselves, assuming the subscribers were balanced and philosophically diverse.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#580

Post by SamDc73 »

> "Katharine Graham the previous owner of the Washington Post during the Watergate years was threatened by Holden who famously said, and I will leave out a bit of the quote because it's too crude to say out on the stage, but he said you tell Kate Graham if she prints that we'll put here blank through a big fat ringer, and then they actually worked to try get their broadcast license resented, it's completely un-American, so I guess the only thing I say is as Katharine Graham my role model I'm very willing to let any of my body parts go through a big fat ringer if need be." Jeff Bezos in 2016 when asked about Donald Trump. ^1

I don't think he is pro Trump, but I think he just doesn't want to be on his bad side just in case, just like Zuckerberg he tried to patch his relationship with Trump after he publicly threatened him

1: source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVxubbQQKE 1:01:00

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