Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 1001 posts

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#621

Post by dragonwriter »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #596
nomdep wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sick of this absurd FUD. You surely must realize that the claims that if Trump wins, democracy is going to end are just fearmongering, don't you?

He literally tried an autogolpe. I saw it, live, on TV with my own eyes and ears. He's currently promising to pardon the people that participated in it that have been prosecuted while pardoning himself due to his own immune status. That's how a Banana Republic functions.

He'a also promised to purge the civil service and replace it entirely with personal loyalists, and to conduct ethnic cleansing on a world-historic scale.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#622

Post by eapressoandcats »

nomdep wrote: post #480
SkipperCat wrote: post #373

Democracy dies in darkness was a promise, not a warning.

I'm sick of this absurd FUD. You surely must realize that the claims that if Trump wins, democracy is going to end are just fearmongering, don't you?

It’s… really not? The dude tried to overturn the previous election, and repeatedly threatens to throw his enemies in jail. Senior members of his own staff have flat out said he’s a fascist and he’s literally running on a promise to round up millions of people and put them in camps.

Like probably we’ll still have elections but you know, so do Hungary and Russia.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#623

Post by anonzzzies »

iambateman wrote: post #601

Let’s zoom out from the present election and remember how Bezos took over… The first thing he said was “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.” We, the readers, should require an apology from Bezos for breaking his promise to keep this separate from his other concerns. Until that happens, one must assume that WaPo is permanently compromised in the favor of Bezos’s…

So, like Musk with X.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#624

Post by nomel »

fenomas wrote: post #546
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…

> not endorsing candidates might be good for the Washington Post's business, by improving its perceived impartiality You're at the wrong meta level - if the paper's owner is making the editorial decisions, there's no impartiality to perceive in the first place. I mean, if the question at hand was "should the editors endorse someone?" then what you're saying could stand. But that's out the window if they're being over…

I think one could claim that the editorial department was trying to make a decision that could/would be interpreted as a company stance, rather than a department stance, to the average person. Sure, you could blame the average person.

I also can’t comprehend the benefit of a biased editorial department, from a business or quality perspective. A diverse set of views is always more interesting to read, but I’m surely in the minority with that perspective. If someone could explain the benefit, I’m very interested.

I don’t see this is any different than the media black out that nearly all corporate employees enjoy, that exists for one reason: don’t make your opinions appear as those of the whole. Looking at the mixed responses to all of this, across the internet, that does seem to be the case, where people are confusing it all.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#626

Post by devvvvvvv »

eapressoandcats wrote: post #617
dotnet00 wrote: post #257

I like this trend of taking neutral positions that seems to be picking up again, although the timing for this doesn't look good. Just as how universities are starting to adopt neutrality, so should news outlets.

There’s not really any such thing as neutrality. Arguably universities can maybe step away from things (although this is complicated with departments that are inherently political), but “neutral” if you’re writing about politics always reflects some kind of value judgement. By definition one person’s neutrality is someone else’s bias.

Not endorsing a presidential candidate is neutral in this context. Easy.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#628

Post by mensetmanusman »

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.

Media companies that stitch sentences together to make an interview coherent might be misleading.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#629

Post by DiscourseFan »

dmix wrote: post #539
a123b456c wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the implicit argument is that he wants to avoid more canceled contracts, along with other forms of retribution like personal attacks he experienced a few years earlier.

Maybe but Bezos is not lacking money. That contract was $1B/yr contract over ten years. They make $600B+ a year. Not exactly going to tip the scales of his stock options. These billionaires usually buy money losing newspapers, or social networks, for personal reasons. If I was going to bet on it I’d very much lean on a personal motive beyond money.

Its a general posture. Amazon is an industrial powerhouse and Trump has signaled that he can and will attack his political opponents no matter how rich they are. If he wants to, Trump may actually nationalize Amazon; the alternative is presumably becoming his toady.

Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

#630

Post by devvvvvvv »

angoragoats wrote: post #486
dotnet00 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN