I thought that having billions buys you freedom. Turns out you still have to lick the boot.
“Fuck you money” is a myth.
It’s only a myth if your greed is unbounded. Double digit millions USD should be actual FU money almost anywhere.
Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#792Good reason not to subscribe to the WP.
You didn't draw that conclusion when WaPo lied about Russians hacking US electrical infrastructure, sabre rattling for war, then retracting the entire story when it was proved they fabricated the story? One of the authors of the faked story is still employed by WaPo, by the way.
It's only bad when they refuse to bend to your political orthodoxy, not when they knowingly print dangerous and false stories about nation state hacks (eerily similar to NYT's lies about WMDs in Iraq) -- something likely to drag the world to war again.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#793From Jacob Heilbrunn on the National Interest:
# The Capitulation of The Washington Post
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/capitulati...
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#794Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#795Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tech workers are Democratic. Tech owners and high level executives are right wing.
> Tech workers are Democratic Not one hundred percent of them. And many tech execs are liberal. I'm talking about the larger demographic trends.
The trend is towards liberal, the higher up in tech you are the more you lag that trend (possible confound with gender):
https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/ftc...
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#796Newspapers 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…
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…
Bezos was blackmailed by Trump ally and National Enquirer boss David Pecker a few years ago. He resisted then and it led to the most expensive divorce in history.
Just some context worth adding.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bezos wants to help elect someone who (his lawyers allege) killed a gov contract favourable to his own business? Or did I misread your comment.
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.
> 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.
That makes no sense at all. If the primary concern was avoiding canceled contracts, it would be in his best interests to ensure that the guy who is threatening to cancel contracts out of spite would not be elected.
Pressuring the Washington Post to not endorse the candidate who does not pose that threat goes exactly against that.
It's something else.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 i…
> 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.
This makes no sense whatsoever. It is the editorial board deciding what candidate is endorsed by the paper. It is a company stance, made by the company's representatives on behalf of the company and based on the company's editorial guidelines.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not saying the BBC is Fox News or CNN but I wouldn’t really call it impartial.
"somewhat impartial" I can not really think of any truly impartial news source. Can you? At least no in the countries I have lived in
No public impartial news source, but organisation-internal news sources that work for the reader himself, those probably exist and probably very good. A bank's analysis department can work like one for the traders for short-term things.
Such organisations for the general public are possible. You'd need a group that is interested in correct judgements on some matter and willing to form an organisation to pay for investigations on it.
Re: Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris
#800Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem for BBC is that it's government-funded. It can't really take a stance without potentially upsetting the next government.
> The problem for BBC is that it's government-funded. That's not factually accurate. The BBC is principally funded through the licence fee (i.e. directly by the viewers).
It's inherently dependent on the government. The viewers don't get together and voluntarily decide to fund it.
Unfortunately I don't think there's a single such organisation in the world-- controlled-by-members newspaper. Even almost-controlled-by-members newspapers here in Sweden aren't fully subject to member control, with this typically being indirect through some board or similar organisation.