781–790 of 1001 posts
I thought that having billions buys you freedom. Turns out you still have to lick the boot.
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…
> Newspapers are a business and have to give their customers what they want. Isn't that supposed to be news and not worthless institutional opinions on the presidential office? > It's unlikely that an independent owner with no conflict of interest would make the same decision. An unconflicted owner wouldn't endorse either candidate. In general, hopefully, but in this election, particularly.
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.
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…
I don't think it's a bad business decision. I stopped reading the WaPo when I got sick of its partial treatment of everything. And I'm not talking about supporting one candidate or another, I'm talking about sticking to facts and not ideological positions. This decision by Bezos is a shot across the bow in the right direction, in my opinion. Clear eyed news are needed and aside from FT.com (which these days is also t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a completely wrong and perhaps deliberately misleading impression of journalism and journalists. Healthy journalism absolutely provides critical analysis.
lol....a key tenet of journalism is objective reporting: Objective Reporting: Journalism aims to report events truthfully, objectively, and fairly, without bias. This involves verifying facts, seeking multiple perspectives, and presenting information clearly. Activist-journalism is an oxymoron. There are very few journalists anymore.
Accuracy, verification, impartiality, yes, but seeking the truth upsets people, and the usual attack on that is to claim bias, prejudice, activism and “fake news” on the part of the journalist/organization
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politics is simply preference. The shape of the earth is not.
It’s a bit more than that in my mind. Political candidates at this point are telling vastly different stories about the reality we live in. The changes they want to make follow from the story they are telling. It’s not that politicians share a common set of facts and just have differences of opinion about how to best accomplish the same goal. They are telling vastly different stories. In some sense, the more compelli…
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?
My gripe with endorsements is they imply people can't think critically for themselves.
I say supposedly because I find it hard to believe the WaPo endorsement would actually sway anyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
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?
It’s a statement of the values of the newspaper. This is what we stand for, and we are endorsing this person because of those values. It tells people about the paper and about the candidate being endorsed. The issue here is that Trump is a threat to our democratic system of government. It’s not the time to be changing policies and refusing to endorse. It’s a time for taking a stand.