Not antagonizing the likely future POTUS is smart business especially when said future POTUS is known to lash out with retaliatory rhetoric and actions.
Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
671–680 of 1001 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just hope this will finally put to bed any ridiculous mentions of "liberal media bias", or that the tech sector has some liberal bias.
Conservatives keep moving the goal post. I see a less criticism of conservatives due to the fear of being labeled as bias. i.e. the coverage of Biden's cognitive decline vs Trump's cognitive decline.
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Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#673I find it strange that people are so upset about the absence of an opinion piece from this newspaper. What is the reason? Either you want to be told what to think, or you want everyone else to be told what to think. I think it is the latter. Would there be any outrage here if Fox news decided not to endorse a candidate? I highly doubt it. Some people may like being challenged on what they believe, which is good, but that's probably the edge case
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#674Good because newspapers should not be endorsing candidates.
It is one thing to be neutral when one candidate wants more military spending and a lower top income tax bracket and the other is in favor of higher taxes on top and more social spending. But in this case one candidate literally tried to subvert the last election. Even ignoring all his other issues, that one is enough to say we shouldn't vote for him.
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Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
1. Publishing an editorial endorsing a candidate is extremely common, both for US papers generally and for this paper specifically. The reasons for that are various but they have nothing to do with what we're discussing here. 2. Moreover, that whole question is irrelevant when the editors aren't even making the decision. If Bezos is willing to override them, then effectively he is the paper's editorial board - so the…
(1) might be both common and also wrong. (1) being why I dislike most of these media outlets. (2) the editorial board may be wrong and suffering groupthink, and ultimately slowly killing the paper.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#676[flagged]
HN is not a living organism, it’s an abstract entity formed by the people who engage in the site. As it happens within any community, there’s no such thing as consistency. In fact, so diverse is this community that I’d wager that luck and chance explain much of what gains traction or gets flagged here.
Majority of HNers are obviously left-leaning, and left-leaning political views always get much more support than right-leaning political views.
HN not abstract entity, it is full of living organisms with biases and majority view carries the day.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually agree with you, newspapers really shouldn't be doing this. Our major local paper in the Twin Cities basically torched its reputation by endorsing wildly unqualified candidates for city offices (like, one guy they endorsed for Minneapolis city council didn't even live in Minneapolis). They recently decided to stop doing endorsements at all, which I think is the right decision. But that's not what happened h…
Another point that just occurred to me: Who is the endorsement supposed to influence? I think in America at least, the national media has become so hyper partisan in the eyes of its readers, that an endorsement of a newspaper is really just preaching to the crowd. What difference does that endorsement really make? At the national level, I don't think it really makes a difference if a newspaper endorses a candidate fo…
I think it's like wearing a jersey for your favorite sport franchise. It's not meant to influence anyone outside the group but reinforce group cohesion.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#678Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#679The 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/
The endorsement lets them write why they support the candidate. Laying out the reasons is what could be convincing, and is what's also being blocked here.
But this change doesn't stop any of the journalists from writing editorials endorsing a candidate, including laying out reasons, correct?
The difference is that the paper as a whole won't endorse a candidate?
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#680Endorsements 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 subsc…
Has an owner ever killed an already-written endorsement 11 days out from an election? You're right that there is an implicit assumption that an owner condones the paper's operation. But to exert control like this so specifically and in such a baldly partisan way is unprecedented, thus the resignations both at the Post and the LA Times. It's one thing to hire an editorial staff with whom you agree, it's quite another…