Jeff Bezos Defends Decision to Buy Washington Post

As a Washington DC resident, I will say I've read the post since around the late 1990's. Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism, it was a pretty dependable paper - lately though the articles have titles that are oriented towards generating clicks rather than providing valuable journalism.

Rumor from the WaPo staff is that there is a strong emphasis on building web traffic and revenue, I assume that this is the cause for articles that are less relevant to an informed understanding of the world and more relevant to entertaining the reader's desires.

It doesn't take too much reason to imagine that if Amazon can predict and suggest products that you may enjoy (and purchase) then they will predict and suggest stories that you may enjoy (and load advertisements with them). It's part of a growing internet-wide trend to provide a constant flow of agreeable, "interesting" content that is tailed for you, as a unit of data, versus you as a human desiring a balanced view of the world (to include opinions not of your own vein).

However - I do agree that the article has not delved into this.

The traditional American media control strategy is containment. In this model, discussion is directed around a tiny subset of the issues. The presumed issue here being "Won't Bezos quash articles critical of him?" but that's only for containment purposes. While that merits an amount of debate, the bigger story here is much more interesting. It concerns the potential for intense collaboration between the government and industry, as seen in countries such as Italy during the Berlusconi years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi).

From the article: "...he bought the newspaper because he wanted to make it into a more powerful national — and even global — publication, and that The Post was well situated to be a watchdog over the leaders of the world’s most powerful country."

This is a strategic move that doesn't have anything to do with classic American values of freedom of speech and access to information. It's about increasing his power, not about journalistic values such as improving the quality of the newspaper, researching stories better, etc. Bezos isn't a career journalist or editor at all. He has no qualifications or experience to perform these functions. His only qualification is wads of money and business leadership. But just like presidency, these don't prepare one for civic leadership. They don't replace historical, world or legal knowledge.

I don't trust how he feels he can suddenly serve as "watchdog" over leaders when he really only has (massively!) large-scale retail experience. It's more likely a Caesar-style move to grab the role of Pontifex to broker power. When he talks about "watchdog over leaders," I feel he means leaders will have to curry favor with him to get topics presented in the proper way, as opposed to using the paper as an instrument for fighting Congress for better working conditions, higher minimum wage, working visa reform, immigration reform, etc.

So, this NYT article follows tightly the trend of containment outlined by Chomsky and Zinn, in which discussion is focused by presentation of minor, distracting points in order to draw energy away from the more salient points. The minor point being the newspaper's ability to criticize its own editor. The larger point being a business leader steering the publication of information toward large-scale corporate ends and away from classic American values.

There is a widespread belief (real or perceived) that he has turned the newspaper into effectively a SuperPac for a specific candidate (to help them in the primary and general).

But what is definitely true is that the quality at the Washington Post has taken a nose dive. They often post click-bait headlines with thin articles that are first to market but now often contain mistakes or misinformation.

The Washington Post used to be one of the most trusted papers in the country, with long wordy articles, that appeared later than others but were able to give you the whole story rather than just knee jerk early reactions.

It always had a liberal/democrat bias. But not quite this bad and not quite for one specific candidate over others.

No reports that I know of, no. Trump threw the accusation, however:

"Trump...accused Mr. Bezos of dodging corporate taxes and abusing his position as owner of The Post to launch personal attacks and to keep lawmakers from scrutinizing Amazon"

Trump's comments on Bezos / Washington Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD22O0y5VV0&feature=youtu.be...

Sure, Carlos Slim owns a huge portion of the the NYTimes public stock, but he doesn't have any significant voting power as that is held privately. If a rogue editor/journalist criticized Carlos Slim, he would have no power to fire them, where as at the Washington Post Jeff Bezos certainly would.

Not taking sides here but will note that a newspaper shapes public opinion. It's not equivalent to buying a sports team or really any other purchase.

One is entertainment. The other is the mainstay newspaper of the capital of the USA; one of the newspapers / magazines with the most political sway. He should be scrutinised for doing so.

Reading the article though, the title is "bait" coming from the NYT. The majority is just a summary of a very interesting interview in which he actually is largely positively portrayed.

Personally, I think Bezos has done a great job with the washington post. I've probably read more post articles over the last two years than in the previous ten. Would be nice to see the HN stats on that :).

This is why we should scrutinize such purchases.

title: "Amazon's CEO & The Washington Post Team Up to Smear Bernie Sanders - 16 Hit Pieces in 16 Hours"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/8/1497827/-Amazon-s-CEO...

Yes, that struck me as well.

I wonder where the topsoil figures in Mr Bezos' vision; the bit where you grow the food. All life depends on that really.

I think extreme wealth must in some way contribute to insanity. I wonder if he puts tissues down on the floor before he takes a step.

other articles on the net show that he provided a few hundred year time frame. So as with any long term prediction its not something worth challenging. Once you push beyond a generation its usually the same as throwing it at the wall and seeing what will stick.

Though I do disagree that energy production on this planet will be limited, if anything it will become excessive once the clean energy revolution takes over. Then our big problem becomes dealing with all the heat pollution from using the energy

Yeah, shame in trying to use money to get something done these days, like save the planet.

From an editorial perspective, more or less establishment left-of-center. I'm not sure I'd draw much of a distinction between it and the New York Times although--at least historically--the Washington Post (unsurprisingly) majored in US politics to a greater degree than the Times. In other words, pretty typical US major urban newspaper.

Try ProPublica or NPR

In general , you won't find qualify free news , because quality costs money, and someone has to pay. Paywall, ads and mass market tabloid eyeball grabbing, or generous donors.

A side from the stupid freethrow- interference gimmick, has Cuban changed the way the Mavs play b-ball?

He does have more freedom to redefine the genre, without destroying the core product, than a newspaper does