Perhaps more controversially is the reminder that Washington Post and Twitter are just two large media organisations privately owned by billionaires. And it's no secret that Bezos and Musk are not friends.
Musk is doing very much the opposite.
It may not be overt, but what they choose to publish is just as powerful as what they choose not to publish, and there have been some very high profile stories that were deliberately not published in the WaPo.
Meanwhile, the Columbia Review of Journalism (a well-respected academic source) reported in 2021 that the Post is uninfluenced by Bezos. They point out the many negative articles about Amazon and otherwise against Bezos's interests.
It's a Bezos company now, and just like all the other Bezos companies, it will consider it's owner's desired outcome before taking action.
Just flip the idea on it's head - would Bezos be happy if WaPo suddenly became a right-leaning publication tomorrow? Probably not... he might actually pick up a phone then but I digress.
The influence is implicit and persistent. There is no reason to own a newspaper other than influence. It's been that way probably forever...
Actually, again, academic analysis suggest there are two primary reasons rich people buy media outlets. One is for influence (like Murdock) and the other is for prestige (like they would buy a Van Gogh or a wing at the ballet).
> would Bezos be happy if WaPo suddenly became a right-leaning publication tomorrow?
Probably not. Those are far lower in prestige. In much the same way that people donating to an opera company would be upset if they primarily decided to use their venue for open-mic nights.
It's the reason Benjamin Franklin founded and ran various newspapers, including America's first German-language newspaper. He was trying to drum up support for the Revolution.
What stories are you thinking of here?
Even the fabled NPR has a pretty extreme political view they want you to accept. The WaPo is not different, and Bezos (and people like Bezos) only buy media organizations for the influence they provide.
There doesn't have to be any editorial edict. The unspoken obvious reality is that no Washington Post reporter is ever going to be as brazen and quick to print on an article about Bezos or Amazon as they are about Musk or Twitter or Tesla. That's bias. That's ownership affecting the product.
Update to my comment. Found it: https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1588572920066240512 (Cernovich can have bad faith takes, but the video speaks for itself)
I remember full well when I was at a startup and the principal engineer pulled me aside and said: "you have been poking around everywhere and you have identified problems. I want you to stop talking about them otherwise the whole thing will fall apart".
As a leader, that is your immediate cue to silently work on transitioning that person out of the company and build cement where he put sticks.
EDIT: This whole commentary is really weird. Normally you publish this sort of information, if you feel like there is no one at the company that is willing to address such issues. But there has just been a leadership change and the leadership has hinted at wanting to address exactly these sort of issues. But assuming that the commentary is correct, to keep it private, to protect incompetent leadership and then publish it in hopes that the government steps in, to specifically NOT address these issues, is a logic that I can't really wrap my head around.
I can't stand the Washington Post or MSNBC, but the cure for bad faith is not to consult some other bad faith merchant. It's like ho you can find perfectly edible food in a supermarket dumpster, but that doesn't make the dumpster clean. If you're trying to maximize objectivity you can generally cast around for a better source. In this case the tweet framing is bullshit and the video has little evidentiary value other than feeding confirmation bias.