Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads editor to quit | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads editor to quit

npr.org

288 pointslayer8253 comments

It'd be interesting if a paper could present opposing op-eds side by side by authors that are clearly the strongest on each side of the discussion. Similar to collegiate debates or the argument/rebuttal style used for the ballot propositions we vote on.

Often times - in today's media one side will present the other sides case by only addressing some strawman arguments.

I like the idea, I think they would need to be staggered though, Author A writes an article giving their best case supporting X, a week later Author B writes a rebuttal to author A (let's assume it's well thought out and civil because we can still dream) in a follow up article, this continues for as long as it's an interesting conversation. Probably a hard sell to the modern audience and attention span, but I would read it as long as they both were substantive and well-reasoned.

I think it's better to present simultaneously, but give the authors several rounds of drafting against each other, so they can update responses into their main body (similar to how supreme court opinions are authored and released).

You'd need a really strong editor to be in charge of the review/revision/back-and-forth process, so they could cut out shenanigans like an author withholding their strongest argument, only to include it in their final version.

I'd probably have a rule that no new arguments could be introduced into an article, other than as a direct response to anything _new_ that the opponent author included in their prior revision.

not sure I'm familiar with supreme court opinions, but are those drafts public?

edit because parent edited to talk about editor :): I think there needs to be transparency at the editorial level then, if the editor is making decisions they can write a reasoning behind each one and make it public.

> not sure I'm familiar with supreme court opinions, but are those drafts public?

No, they're infamously secretive. I think far too secretive, and that's a part that I don't think needs to be emulated.

While I do think there's value in having the drafting process "out of the public view" for an op ed, I'd agree in transparency after the fact. I could see just publishing all the revisions, editors notes, etc online alongside the actual final pieces.

for debate's sake, I'm genuinely curious, if there are "out of public view" drafting/editing how can it be hardened against building a meta-narrative by making sure the two opinion pieces aren't choreographed to make A or B look bad?

I think the only way it can truly be managed is by having the author of each side be a trusted and respected figure in their community. I think publishing the full drafts, editors notes, and revisions along with the piece would do a lot to make visible any deliberate efforts to frustrate one side.

I don't think the "out of public view" drafting makes a big difference around this. I actually think making the drafting and revision process public during the drafting would have more corrosive effects on the process. In that one side can push and set a narrative without the other side having opportunity to respond.

Anyway, I don't think any editorial system can be fully hardened against the editor leaving imprints of their viewpoints on the piece, but I think this approach would be significantly more transparent than the current state of play.

Newspapers generally run opinion pieces from an array of viewpoints.

They give the writers full freedom, which makes it hard to get strict point counterpoint pieces like that. And many editors are averse to a simple "two sides" narrative.

it sounds like Bezos is opposed to any opposing opinions to "free markets" and those won't be found on the editorial page any longer except for occasional opinions

Yep. I was referring to newspapers with some kind of journalistic integrity. Which the Washington Post used to be.

I don't think this has been true, at least for most newspapers, for many years now. The NYTimes opinion pages are a complete echo chamber for instance, and if contrarian opinions are published, heads roll. For instance they "retired" their opinion head after he allowed the publication of an opinion piece from a Senator Tom Cotton suggesting that troops should be used to quell the violent/destructive riots in 2020.

Reading the opinion pages 30 years back everything was very different, but times have changed to where big name papers are mostly just the news shoehorned into a tidy bias confirming package. In many ways I respect what Bezos is doing because it entirely drops the farcical pretext of balance.

I don't think this is true either, and the reason I say that is because it depends on who you ask.

Many will claim NYT has been overly generous in regards to Trump leading up to the election, often choosing not to comment on Trump's more suspicious speech and interpreting his words in a gracious context. While others claim NYT is has an obvious left-wing bias.

The fact people can't even agree which way the bias goes demonstrates to me the bias is not as severe as those aforementioned people claim.

Right, and plenty of conservatives also claim that Fox News is not really conservative anymore. A fact one may not be aware of if they live in this bubble or that. The nature of echo chambers is that it normalizes far from normal behavior/views/actions to the point that then not going even further away from normalcy is seen as toeing the line or even yielding to "the other side."

This is, by far, the most destructive issue with the trend of media spinning everything to conform to the biases of their target demographic.

I completely agree, and I think this is most noticeable on online spaces like twitter. Relenting on a point even just a tad is perceived as being an agent of the "other side". So radical opinions, be it neo-nazism or white supremacy, end up shifting everything rightward. Because even though most people agree, usually that agreement needs to be qualified. And, you give an inch over and over and before you know it you're somewhere entirely different from where you've started.

I'm from GenX and at one time that's what the opinion section in newspapers were like.

In fairness, at one point the extremes of the public's opinions were much closer. It''s easier to debate "should we raise taxes x% to accomplish y goals" than e.g. "should we invade Canada for quite literally no stated reason." Polarization is brutal to public discourse

USA Today has had something like this for a long while [1], though whether they find the strongest voices on each side is debatable.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/26/why-does-u...

Cool. Wasn't aware of that.

Another one is ground.news [1] which lets you compare multiple headline news articles from various sources together.

[1]https://ground.news/about

The major weekly paper in my country does this. It's always nice to read, even though I wish the articles were longer x)

One news organization, at least, is brave enough to deliver this vision:

https://theonion.com/opinion/point-counterpoint/

Thanks for the link, great read, and there were fine points made on both sides.

This is the general idea of the Tangle newsletter [1]. They pick a topic from the news and provide "What the Right is saying" and "What the Left is saying" about the topic.

[1] https://www.readtangle.com/

Right and Left are a false dichotomy of strawmen. But such is US politics.

And somehow the "left" opinion is always actually a DNC centrist, while the "right" opinion is a member of the John Birch Society.

Pro/Con op-eds is one name this goes by, and used to be incredibly common.

Perhaps. It can also produce or reinforce a false balance.

We don't have too many op eds defending the flat earth theory anymore. Sadly I've seen too many friends fall down such rabbit holes.

I think that if you put the strongest arguments for and against the flat earth theory together on the same page and with equal space, the result would not be a false balance. In fact I can't think of any better way to change flat earther minds.

That’s why Pastafarianism exists - okay, let’s “teach the controversy” but make sure it’s all the controversies.

IME, once folks attach some brief or figure to their identity, they turn off the logical part of their mind. They'll look for any support as an escape hatch from uncomfortable facts or conclusions.

It also takes a lot of energy and ink to continuously refute perspectives based solely on indoctrination, vibes, and straight up lies.

^belief

> In fact I can't think of any better way to change flat earther minds.

You have a ruinously optimistic outlook for the average human, let alone a flat-earther.

"together on the same space and with equal space".

If you do that, you are telling anyone that just overviews the articles that both views have the same validity and that is just a manner of disagreements between peers, and that is falling into their trap, by doimg that you are actively working FOR the flatbearth cause, even if you want to feel "fair", ypu are just the useful idiot they need to keep spreading and legitimizing.

Flat earthers should no be given even a second unless it is to mock them, we have known that the earth is "round" for 2 millenia, we cannot keep discussing the same things over and over just because a bunch of narcisists want to feel like "the know better".

Not every issue has two equal “sides.” Does every article about vaccine efficacy demand an anti-vax counter? And who gets to decide which “sides” are given a voice, anyway?

> Not every issue has two equal “sides.” Does every article about vaccine efficacy demand an anti-vax counter?

Any topic of current controversy, like vaccines, should have a counter. Even if you find it disagreeable.

Who defines “controversy,” then? If a topic has wide consensus but some think tank invests millions into propagating a contrary opinion, do they deserve 50% of the article?

https://ground.news/

newsweek does it fairly often, although they aren't necessarily famous authors.

RCP (www.realclearpolitics.com) does exactly this every day and has for almost two decades now. Unfortunately, RCP is currently majorly out of favor among liberals for... including in their polling average polls that showed Trump was going to win the 2024 election and linking to op-eds that agreed with Trump at the height of anti-Trump sentiment.

Breaking points is an independent media show on (YouTube and Spotify) that has both a liberal and conservative discuss current events.

Re: Strawman -- Lex Fridman often asks his podcast guests to steel man the opposing side's views. The guests who have well thought out opinions seem to do a really good job at this.

It's PR firm press release to get ahead of the mass resignations (or resistance he's meeting inside). He thinks he can get in front of the story of him exerting editorial control.

Nothing in the story suggests anything about editorial control.

Doesn't the article open with a declaration of such control?

"The Washington Post's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, announced a sweeping new libertarian vision for the paper's opinion sections on Wednesday, just four months after his decision to kill a presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris triggered hundreds of thousands of subscribers to cancel."

In media circles, there's a widespread perspective that the opinions page is completely firewalled from the rest of the newspaper and it's wrong to draw inferences that ideological capture of one might influence the other. I personally consider this to be a polite fiction at best, but I have to acknowledge that people who actually work for newspapers pretty uniformly disagree with me.

Huh? It is specifically a story about Bezos dictating what opinions will be published in his opinion section. That is definitely editorial control.

Somewhere, William Randolph Hearst is simultaneously smiling and jealous

Anyone here old enough to remember if the Fairness doctrine worked? Current internet is impossible to regulate and it's easier to run Doom in a walnut than getting any site to issue a retraction or correct blatant lies, but relying on "arbiters of truth" or wasting hours or days to untangle every article and author is also a hard to concile with real life obligations.

> "We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

You can share your opinion... as long as it's the correct opinion :)

FWIW I do think papers can/should exercise discretion with the opinions they're willing to publish—not hard to imagine why someone might not want to platform hardcore extremists, hate speech, or just generally unwell people—but this is ridiculous. Especially since it's a clear move to favor the interests of said paper's billionaire owner.

> You can share your opinion... as long as it's the correct opinion :)

That's obviously true of every newspaper in existence. No employee is allowed to publish any opinion that goes against their employers' wishes.

From: https://nypost.com/2024/05/30/media/ex-new-york-times-report...

Two people were fired at the NYT after publishing a perfectly reasonable op-ed.

And from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10170541/Bari-Weiss...

"In the book, Bowles tells the stories she wasn’t allowed to tell at the [New York] Times: She writes, for example, about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which transformed into a police-free “autonomous zone,” or CHAZ, Antifa protests, and the experience of attending an anti-racism training called “The Toxic Trends of Whiteness.”"

Unless I'm misunderstanding, opinion columns aren't exclusively written by employees, though. Sometimes they have guests.

I'm also a little skeptical of the NY Post and Daily Mail as sources, considering both are tabloids... do you have any others on hand?

> Unless I'm misunderstanding, opinion columns aren't exclusively written by employees, though. Sometimes they have guests

It's important not to mix up "writing" and "publishing"

Something might be written by a guest writer but it is absolutely published by the employees of the magazine

I am sure that Bezos doesn't really care what anyone writes as long as the things he doesn't want published don't get published.

Opinion pieces are often syndicated. The Washington Post has its own writers group, which has a large stable of writers with a variety of viewpoints. They also run guests and people syndicated from other groups.

Oh, that's interesting. I assume some of the syndication gets fanned out to smaller local papers?

Yep. Most of it. You'll see the same people in newspapers across the country.

And not just smaller papers. Even the big papers will run articles syndicated by the other papers. You'll see George Will's name pop up everywhere -- he's part of the Washington Post Writer's Group.

> I'm also a little skeptical of the NY Post and Daily Mail as sources, considering both are tabloids

And yet both have good content regularly that other publications won’t carry due to their bias. The format of printing doesn’t matter.

The format of the printing isn't what is being described by the word 'tabloid' and it hasn't been for decades. Anyone who is not in the business of printing a newspaper would normally interpret 'tabloid' to indicate a low-quality sensationalist newspaper. In the UK the industry switched to calling the format itself 'compact' because of this.

My second link was incorrect, sorry. I thought I had fixed it during editing. I pulled the quote from here: https://www.deseret.com/entertainment/2024/05/19/nellie-bowl...

> In the book, Bowles tells the stories she wasn’t allowed to tell at the [New York] Times: She writes, for example, about Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which transformed into a police-free “autonomous zone

She has a book to sell, and she’s using the well-trodden path of outrage on right wing news sites to sell it.

Meanwhile her story is actually published in the New York Times. Although I was at CHAZ and i don’t know if this is a good-faith retelling of the situation. For example, not mentioning the violence experienced in Chaz was not due to lack of police but rather right wing counter protesters roaming and causing trouble.

https://archive.is/2020.08.07-113728/https://www.nytimes.com...

> not due to lack of police but rather vigilantes roaming and causing trouble.

I wonder why the vigilantes thought they could get away with it

The first part of your quoted sentence, for those wanting to know what those pillars are:

"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets".

I'm not familiar enough with US ideology, but those 2 topics seem, perhaps too narrow? In my country, something about protecting consumers and also about equality and egalitarianism would be considered essential.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184762

Wild. Of all the things that do not seem to be under threat and desperately needing a newspaper to stand up and defend them: free markets in America.

well, all these tariffs are a major regression away from free markets. Although somehow I doubt this is what Bezos has in mind.

Yeah there is an obvious immediate test here for whether Bezos is sincere about this new direction. An opinion section aggressively advocating for free trade should be able to find plenty of reasons to criticize the new administration. I'm pretty skeptical that's what will happen though.

The actual original meaning (and the one that still makes sense) of free markets was “free from economic rent” as sections of the economy were monopolies granted by the king.

Those free markets really did benefit the people and the country. And they were compatible with taxes and tariffs.

Bezos is using the corrupted modern meaning, “free to charge economic rent” because he wants amazon to capture a greater share of global economic activity

I agree with you about the term's original usage, but I don't think that is the modern meaning.

Usage varies, but most commonly "free market" refers to an economy that is not centrally planned. All economies have at least some level of central planning, as well as at least some degree of economic freedom for participants, so the term is somewhat like the usage of "right" and "left" in politics, where it just indicates which side of a center line someone or something falls. Any market on the free-er side of the "center" can be described as a "free market."

So it has basically just become an antonym of socialism. I don't think it necessarily implies anything about a tacit approval of rent seeking in the economy.

I take your point, and that (i think you would agree) loose anti-socialism definition you explained is a big part of it. But i think the subtext in modern usage is also “the right to operate a private toll on the economy” especially when its Bezos advocating it.

You think the current editor resigned because Bezos was asking them to criticize tariffs? Like every other major publication, and WPo has done before?

He's trying to get them to stop promoting socialism/statism.

according to what Trump says (i have not researched it myself) the US in the recent past has paid tariffs many times over what it has charged in tariffs, and he wants to equalize the playing field. So yes, imposing tariffs is a regression away from free markets, but if what he says about foreign tariffs is true, it already wasn't a free market for trade.

Tariffs are paid by the people buying and selling, to the state imposing the tariff.

a falling tide lowers all boats

> So yes, imposing tariffs is a regression away from free markets, but if what he says about foreign tariffs is true, it already wasn't a free market for trade.

Except that in Trump 1.0, he signed a free trade deal with MX and CA and said:

> The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history.

* https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/pr...

But now it's a bad deal:

* https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-usmca-nafta-tariffs-can...

and wants to impose 25% tariffs on MX and CA—in violation of the free trade deal that he signed.

There are plenty of people who defend free markets...but both political parties are increasingly against them.

Biden and Harris both campaigned on price controls. Trump is all in on tariffs.

You don’t get big corporate donations to your superpac by trying to bust up monopolies.

Democrats out-fundraised the Republicans last election and were arguably more anti-business (eg. Lina Khan's FTC) than the Republicans.

Don't pretend cost of living wasn't a lot of Trump voters reason to vote for Trump. The tarrifs weren't a surprise and Vance was running around brandishing a box of eggs as the greatest problem.

The electorate only likes free markets when it makes things cheap with no consequences they care about.

That sounds beneficial for sure.

They aren't free. Noticed all the oligopolies around lately?

Do you think Bezos has it in mind to take on those oligoplies when he changes the editorial focus to promoting free markets?

It's not the worst reach

To Bezos, "free markets" is a world where Amazon is free to monopolize however it wants without interference. It is one where people like Lina Khan are imprisoned or shot rather than placed in positions of power.

What consumers want is a competitive market with many choices that pushes down prices and forces companies to innovate. What Bezos wants is to crush everybody else.

Lately? When was it not like that?

From 1932 to 1980 or so the government tried to break up big monopolies to encourage competition, both parties pretty much agreed not to do that (there are some real benefits to consolidation) until the last 8 year or so because monopoly power is getting extreme. See https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

partly because of astroturfing about "benevolent" monopolies that was pushed on to judges and politicians

From 1932 to 1980 or so the government tried to break up big monopolies to encourage competition

Starting with FDR and ending with Reagan? I think that the history of US antitrust is more complicated. The first round of trust busting (Sherman Act, Standard Oil) was a generation before FDR, and the period you've highlighted had two great monopolies, AT&T and IBM. I agree that the policy had been pretty much hands off between Microsoft and big tech.

You're right about the chronology, it did start around 1900 or so.

Free markets are under attack in all kinds of different dimensions by the ruling president and legislature: tariffs, restricting dock automation, etc.

The US often talks about wanting free markets: but it uses some pretty big sticks too negotiate with and has some fairly hefty demands to get value for the US. The Trans Pacific agreement was pretty ugly as a New Zealander. In particular was the 'Disney' copyright extensions. The US uses it's economic power to increase is economic power, while inviting other countries to sell their low value farming goods cheaply to the US.

And it's not like they are respecting the intention of NAFTA - what's an agreement worth if the US can unilaterally decide to hack around their agreements.

The only reason that prescription meds are advertised in New Zealand (US and NZ are the only countries in the world that allow direct to consumer pharma marketing) was because the US strong-armed it into a trade agreement.

Wow - I always wondered why our good lefty country had those. Personally I find those adverts disgusting even though I'm business friendly and respect some of the outputs of pharma.

Can you cite this claim?

According to two medical professionals from the Department of Public Health and General Practice, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand and writing in theBMJ

Industry funded patient information and the slippery slope to New Zealand

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2001072/

  In New Zealand and the US, the only two developed countries that allow direct to consumer advertising of prescription medicines, opposition has grown steadily from both the public and doctors. New Zealand's health system is much closer to those in Europe than the US system. So what can we learn from its experience?

  Rise of advertising

  Unlike most other developed countries, New Zealand never enacted pre-emptive legislation to prevent direct to consumer advertising.

  The adverts started appearing in the early 1990s, and steadily increased.

  But the US Food and Drugs Administration relaxation of regulatory requirements for broadcast advertising in 1997, unleashed an explosion in both the US and New Zealand.

  Last year drug companies spent over $5bn (£2.5bn; €3.6bn) on direct to consumer advertising in the US and tens of millions of dollars in New Zealand.

It was as much absence of barriers to entry as it was a strong armed entry.

I definitely misremembered, then.

But looking now I'm also seeing "due to heavy lobbying by the pharma industry, including the US pharmaceutical companies" as to why it hasn't been shut down. But I stand corrected.

No drama, I honestly had no idea, it was thanks to your comment that I looked it up at all.

It sparked curiousity.

Now I'm thankful Australia had laws in place ahead of any pharma drama.

The US doesn't have a trade agreement with NZ.

Though that is decidedly a pro-free market philosophy.

Not to mention the total lack of regard for the rule of law, a previous strong point for companies doing business in the US

25% tarrifs on Europe certainly isn't an example of free markets.

It is… free market allows reciprocity of tariffs levied against US products in the EU

I believe what you are describing is commonly known as fair trade, not free trade.

At least in common parlance, "fair trade" just referred to paying third world farmers a "fair" (ie. above market value) price.

If there are 25% bidirectional tariffs the big companies win but you lose. In a free market without tariffs you are free to go to the better vendor no matter which country you go to. Competition makes everybody get better.

With 25% tariffs Europeans go to the tired European monopoly and Americans get gouged by the American monopolies. The monopolists agree it's great but you pay more for worse services.

The president's tariffs are not wholly reciprocal to foreign tariffs.

Isn’t it a return to protectionist, mercantilist-like policy? That’s the opposite of a free market.

There is a set of values that are common among news organizations. If you don't share a value, then of course you wouldn't think it's important enough for a newspaper to defend. That doesn't mean it's not important to those who do share the value.

In case you haven't noticed, the current US administration is packed full of billionaires who are dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. They don't need more defense. They are winning more strongly than they ever have.

The logical goal of any corporation absent regulation is to become a monopoly...which of course ends the free market.

They don't want a free market. They want to be free to control the market.

"Competition is for losers." ~ Peter Thiel

1. Maybe there are some (?alot) of regulations that put the government as a middleman collecting lots of royalties for doing nothing.

2. Big corporations actually like, encourage, and write the regulations because they form a moat for which smaller competitors can't cross (how is this news to this website?).

This isn't contesting anything I said. If your goal is to become a monopoly, then you do what you need to achieve that with any tool available to you.

The lesson is don't let corporations write regulations, not "obviously regulations are always bad".

You just described two sub-steps of:

> They want to be free to control the market

1. One of the tell-tale signs of regulatory capture is when the Government's efforts do little to control/limit a corporation. Like when they end up relegated to 'middleman' between the corporation and consumer.

2. Regulations that serve as a 'moat' against competition is the carrion call for free markets. Capitalism thrives on competition. If the only competition they face is what they allow, then they have no incentive to innovate and create value, only maximize the value they already have.

The counterpoint to #1 doesn't mean that we don't need to trim the fat... but there is a MAJOR difference between what businesses and the average–joe consider 'fat'.

That is what I think is so scary about this, there is no chance Beelzebub's idea of a free market matches my own.

>the carrion call for free markets

you do realize there's no such thing as a carrion call?

a clarion is a trumpet, and a clarion call is a call for urgency

I suppose with crows ("here's the thing...") you could get a carrion caw

> dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people.

Which ones exactly?

CFPB

Why are they, in your words, "winning"? More people voted for it than against. My point is that it only seems strange to defend it if you don't personally share the value. Clearly many people who voted differently have different values, and they might say it would need defending.

To see this, suppose Bezos talked instead about how the editorial staff needed to prioritize egalitarianism. There are plenty of people who share this value. You can find a great many manifestations of this value in our society. It's embedded into our constitution and legislation. But does that mean that the newspaper would be wrong to defend egalitarianism?

Most people can't string 3 steps of a logical argument together and can't see the system they live in. They actually believe in God and they actually believe they get an afterlife... like how much more gullible can you get

You could even belong in morality.

> More people voted for it than against.

What's meant by "it"?

• 77,302,580 voted for this administration (49.8%)

• 77,935,722 voted against this administration (50.2%)

Source: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...

I'd actually like to see the Greens and the Libertarians get together and run a candidate. Oliver (Libs) got 650,126, and Stein got 862,049. Put em together and you've got enough voters to actually have a reasonable chance of grass roots momentum, exponential involvement, compounding returns on capital / effort, large donor buy-ins, numbers that meet news media minima for free coverage, and long-term viability.

The Green's usually are identified as being libertarian socialism anyways, so it would not be a horrible cooperation to hang out with Libertarians and discuss how to make environmentalism; nonviolence; and social justice work with civil liberties; non-interventionism; and laissez-faire capitalism.

And then they could state that they're not a spoiler, since they draw voters relatively equally from what might otherwise be Democrats and Republicans.

Thanks. If I could, I would edit my comment with, "more people voted for it than any other alternative" so that my comment could run ok through the HN compiler.

the comment is, I believe, not about importance but about the relative strength of those ideas in American society.

How much ink needs to be spilled defending ideas that have huge amount of backing, even among people who theoretically are ideologically opposed to it? Elizabeth Warren calling herself a capitalist is a pretty strong indicator of how much capitalist realism has taken hold.

It's like Bezos sending out a note saying that editors need to go out to promote not kicking dogs. Even amongst the supposed enemies of free markets, if you ask them enough questions so many people in the US still basically believe in it. Especially among the Post's readership!

The ideas don't seem to have much backing within the cultural elite (perhaps hypocritically as they benefit from the system), mainstream media, and certainly not the Washington Post. Also declining backing from both political parties.

While for a conservative it might look like the cultural elite is opposed to these ideas, for someone who is more to the left, the "big tent" on economic issues between the 'cultural elite' and more conservative elements feels much more present.

Price fixing was done during World War 2. Actual, real price fixing. Harris talking about a tiny version of that with an anti-price gouging bill during the campaign got the following headline: "When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?"

There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post. And on the left, not only could you fit entire major ideologies to the left of the leftmost US newspaper op-ed writers, you could _fit entire ideologies to the left of those ideologies_.

"There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post"

I agree, but the case here isn't for fringe views, it is for more balance and debate within the big tent.

I mean, actually, I would argue that free markets in America are in desperate need of defense, but probably not the kind that Jeff Bezos would provide.

Specifically away from business consolidations and monopolistic tactics. The very kind of thing that may lead to something like the breakup of say Amazon.

A million others are ready to take his place :D.

Here's a post linking to a BBC article about same that was flagged and censored here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43191562 ;

> the newspaper's opinion section will focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets",

Free trade! Fair trade!

> and pieces opposing those views will not be published.

Boo, fascist corporate oligarchical censorship!

You might say, "actually that's not fascism, Bob" because fascism is when the government exercises control over the non-government-held corporations.

Fascism is like domming Apple's DEI policies when without Congress you can't make law, or telling people they should buy TikTok for you, with your name on all the checks.

Fascism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

I think the argument is that since the US has legal and well-established corruption there's no difference. Meaning, a billionaire is easily more influential in legislation than a legislator or even multiple legislators, so he is now inseparable from government and is an agent of the government.

At least they've disclosed their intent to impose editorial bias on the opinion section. It doesn't say "Fair and Balanced."

From "Fed to ban policymakers from owning individual stocks" (2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28951646 :

> "Blind Trust" > "Use by US government officials to avoid conflicts of interest" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_trust :

>> The US federal government recognizes the "qualified blind trust" (QBT), as defined by the Ethics in Government Act and related regulations.[1] In order for a blind trust to be a QBT, the trustee must not be affiliated with, associated with, related to, or subject to the control or influence of the government official.

>> Because the assets initially placed in the QBT are known to the government official (who is both creator and beneficiary of the trust), these assets continue to pose a potential conflict of interest until they have been sold (or reduced to a value less than $1,000). New assets purchased by the trustee will not be disclosed to the government official, so they will not pose a conflict.

> https://www.oge.gov/

The Ethics in Government Act which created OGE was passed by Congress in 1978 in response to Watergate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_in_Government_Act

all these cowards resigning instead of doing subterfuge

Billionaires are deciding what peasants can listen.

That's called the mass media. The media act as voices for the rich.

This is just another step toward him getting editorial control of the journal. The billionaire class will not stop until all media (legacy or social) are turned into echo chambers in favor of kleptocracy (disguised as "personal liberties", of course).

And it works, Trump just gave $4.5 trillions in tax cuts to the wealthy [1]. Democracy truly dies in darkness.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9yx7e13ryo

Those who win at elections aren't democratically elected?

They certainly don't get a mandate to destroy it, if that's your point.

Which parts of democracy are being destroyed?

What's even crazier is the ad spend right now by PR firms representing this nonsense.

Pretty much every generic clickbait account on FB (names like "Focal Flow", "Humanity", "Engineering Today", ect) have all exposed themselves as basically being one-in-the-same account. The clear shift in algorithms has me shaken. It's clear that all the technocrat billionaires are on-board with the coup. I mean Bezos himself used to hate Trump, but seems to be shilling this time because Trump embarrassed him publicly and cost him government contracts last time. Same with Zuckerberg. They all went from mortal enemies of Donald Trump to attending his inauguration and clamoring for favor. It's disgraceful.

And Linda Yaccarino is outright threatening advertisers who boycott with lawsuits and government interference.

This is wild, and disgraceful, and sad.

As if income inequality arising from the failure (or success?) of neoliberalism isn't bad enough already, we need one of the nation's top papers to cheerlead for more neoliberalism.

WP's phrase "Democracy dies in darkness" apparently was not a slogan, but a prediction.

It was a call to arms.

It almost did but Bezos is rescuing it from the other extreme. Remains to be seen if he leaves it in the center or takes it to an opposite extreme. Shame few who’re complaining now complained when it became a one sided mouthpiece for the leftist establishment. But now they is big mad he be aligning it with his politics.

> Shame few complained when it became a one sided mouthpiece for the leftist establishment.

Did it? Why did only few complain?

Ok I'll believe you if you give specifics. Here we have the WaPo publisher specifically saying he will bias the paper towards libertarianism. What's a similar example on the other side?

Do you need a bigger example than the tantrums thrown when they were verboten from endorsing a lackluster presidential candidate?

On the scale of left|lean-left|center|lean-right|right, AllSides rates Washington Post as lean-left[0].

The Washington Post's last 10 US Presidential endorsements were all Democrats[1]: Biden in 2020, Clinton in 2016, Obama in 2012, Obama in 2008, Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000, Clinton in 1996, Clinton in 1992, Dukakis in 1988, and Mondale in 1984.

[0]: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart [1]: https://ballotpedia.org/Endorsements_by_The_Washington_Post_...

So there is no evidence of bias directed from up top. How could you tell the difference between journalists calling BS on bad GOP ideas vs some amorphous bias?

A newspaper exclusively endorses one party over the last several decades and your conclusion is that there is no bias?

Who is the Leftist Establisment? Because it isn't Democrats. Ask any real leftist and they will tell you the Democratic Party is centrist.

The establishment is the apparatus currently complaining loudest about its demise at the hands of DOGE: unelected government bureaucrats and all downstream beneficiaries of their policies from SEC-mandated DEI practitioners in private industry to bloated university administrative offices.

Quibble about "leftist" if you want; this is what the grandparent refers to. You can disagree with the narrative but if you fail to understand your opponent you can't ever hope to change their mind.

> unelected government bureaucrats

Isn’t Musk a perfect example of one now?

I'm becoming convinced the opponent wants to grab power and isn't interesting in changing their minds. Some of their supporters might when the effects of DOGE hits home.

Have you read the Post's editorial and op-ed pages? I am long out of the habit, but when I do look at them, there are plenty of contributors who are old-line conservative (George Will's columns are syndicated through the Post) or new and happy to tell us about the special genius of this president.

It's always annoyed me and in fact Jon Stewart made fun of it in an interview with Ezra Klein of... the NY Times.

Democracy is not a reverse vampire that sleeps in a tanning bed. It's perfectly fine with darkness. Democracy Dies in Ignorance would be a more objective & rational motto, even if it is a bit preening and hysterical. Democracy Thrives In Knowledge is a bit more upbeat and gets the point across. Or even Democracy Compels Free Speech which Bezos would probably endorse in spite of his self-contradictory behavior here.

(Yes, he did make a bad call.)

what do you mean by democracy here and what's the effect you think moderation of the opinion section will have?

the writers will be better off on substack, and the owners have a newspaper where they publish the opinions they like. news remains unchanged.

the name "Washington Post" to historians is of a newspaper that spent decades advancing racism. it didn't serve more balanced news journalism until nearly 100 years after it was founded. this is not some fine and well storied institution.

their tag line of "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is from the first Trump era and is a call back to watergate era investigative reporting. it has nothing to do with opinion articles.

Someone now needs to buy NYT and NY Post and deny the neocons pro-war platforms.

They could publish horoscopes and it would be an improvement.

the NYT seems to be rather willing to post opinions like this already

Yes I’m sure the billionaires who would buy a newspaper to impose their own editorial are be anti-war

Anti-Putin != pro-war

pro-Ukraine != pro-war

Defending one's sovereign territory is not being pro-war. Only a bully would say that defending oneself from the bully is being aggressive.

>Defending one's sovereign territory is not being pro-war.

Uh, they can't protect their own territory.

>Only a bully would say that defending oneself from the bully is being aggressive

This is a child-like representation of the conflict. Good and bad, bullies and those standing up to them. This didn't start in 2022, believe it or not.

Russia should not have invaded. But they did, it happened. Unless you or your children are ready to go over there and fight in the conflict, what do you think the outcome here should be? Russia is a nuclear power; do you think Putin is going to risk losing?

I truly don't understand. This idea of "oh my gosh, one country invaded another" as if this hasn't been the entirety of the history of civilization is strange.

> Russia is a nuclear power; do you think Putin is going to risk losing?

Judging by the track record so far, we can expect vague comments seething with resentment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukraini...

> Russia is a nuclear power; do you think Putin is going to risk losing?

Given the track record of the US and Russia since getting nuclear weapons, yes?

Nukes might be pretty good at stopping someone invading your country but they're probably not a great help if you're the invader and you want to occupy the place you're invading. Especially if it's right next door

It's only clear they're good at stopping invasions by history. You could (and possibly are) seeing the precedent set that border disputes can escalate to kinetic conflicts without nukes getting involved - the problem is no one knows where the line is and historically that kept things calm.

Who even knows if that's still the case though? If India goes after Kashmir so they genuinely think Pakistan would risk annihilation defending it if it was lost?

Russia could easily dispose of NATO as an ongoing problem by losing a war with the Baltics if the US then disregards Article 5 because "well it's just not worth risking nuclear war".

Appeasement doesn't work, but apparently we all forgot even the simplified history of WW2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

Promises were made. Why should they defend themselves on their own?

Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine if Ukraine had nukes - just like the EU/US only refuses to invade Russia for fear of nukes.

If you show the world that having been a good citizen in the rules based order isn't enough to avoid being invaded, but nukes are, the consequences are quite predictable: everyone who can afford to do so will start a nuclear program.

I've been arguing that nations already concluded that nukes were the only defense against regime change. The major impetus was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

> This didn't start in 2022, believe it or not.

It’s remarkable that instead of curiosity about your argument or the past history of Russia and Ukraine and NATO, the responses you’re getting immediately jump to “Putin koolaid”. It’s not surprising given that almost no one in America has even basic knowledge on this issue, like being aware of the 2014 coup.

But also if you go against HN political orthodoxy, prepare for downvotes. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter if you’re correct or spend the time to write out a really thoughtful comment. The downvotes and low value responses will still come. It’s probably not the right platform for debate outside its Overton window.

The "2014 coup" excuse has been so thoroughly debunked that anyone who mentions it at this point is either completely out of touch or just malicious.

Saying something is debunked in this way isn’t a debunking. It’s just an attempt at minimizing.

But it is debunked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42986476

Nothing you posted debunks it. You are acknowledging that the duly elected leader was removed from his position without following the constitutional process. The rest is just noise, including that unanimous vote - yea of course people are going to vote that way when there are violent armed insurrectionists around.

So you are saying that a unanimous vote is more likely a coup than a reaction to the horror of the president ordering an attack on innocent protesters? An attack that killed some hundred people, in fact.

I guess you could call that a "coup." I guess I could argue that war is peace, too. Both could be called propaganda.

No, there was nothing unconstitutional about the process. The Ukrainian parliament correctly followed the procedure for holding snap elections.

Snap elections might be a novel idea for Americans who are used to presidents always serving the full term, but they are fairly common in rest of the world. Germany held snap elections just last Sunday, after the government lost its majority in parliament.

That's only if you believe it was a "coup". Which it wasn't.

We are aware that some people call it a coup, and we point out their factual errors, which are many.

>This is a child-like representation of the conflict

No, it really is that simple. Similar to WWII. There are good and bad guys here.

How are neocons involved? They are extinct in Washington and most other places. Who is a neocon now?

Most of the Democratic Party?

I'm kind of loving this libertarian checklist and representation in a coalition party masquerading as Republican

was wondering if anyone noticed. Trump had campaigned to Libertarians earlier last year and so far has done everything they had asked for in exchange for votes

Kind of cool that others feel comfortable espousing previously dismissed libertarian beliefs

Bezos will find staff writers

> Trump had campaigned to Libertarians earlier last year and so far has done everything they had asked for

Trump stopped funding Israel?

https://lp.org/blogs-anonymous-chaos-in-gaza/

Ah missed that one

When the National Enquirer contacted Bezos in 2019 about compromising pictures, he went public rather than play along with what he called blackmail and extortion. It cost him a lot of embarrassment and probably leverage in his divorce. But he turned the tables and put his opponents on the defensive.

Obviously he does not feel that he can do so now, with so much of Amazon’s business in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. That is a shame because if he is not willing to go public with the extortionate threats he is facing, who will?

It seems like a classic prisoners dilemma; if everyone stands up to corruption together, they can create the most protection. But who wants to go first?

Bezos is 100% Pro-Trump.

Bezos is 100% whatever keeps him rich.

Bezos is 100% what doesn't have him waking up dead.

I think it's expected for majority of the rich to be. Trump's world is one where money can (sometimes quite directly) buy things that they couldn't, or were difficult, to buy before.

And my perception might be very skewed, but to me it seems majority of the rich got there by not prioritizing moral goals and universal good above all, so this kind of world is more desirable.

In 2016, Bezos was anti-Trump and the Democratic candidate for president (Hillary Clinton) got nearly twice as much money from rich people as the Republican candidate for president (Donald Trump). It's not a sufficient explanation to say that the Trump or Republican ideology fundamentally appeals to rich people more.

Why do you jump to the conclusion that Bezos is being extorted? It's also possible that he just thinks some of these editorial positions are bad for business. WaPo was a failing business when he bought it (and doesn't seem to be doing great yet), so it's not unreasonable for a new owner to make changes.

He bought it 12 years ago and just now got around to reading the opinion pages, is that your theory?

It's certainly strange, because his paper was clearly anti Trump for most of his tenure as owner.

And yet, he actually started cracking down on the editorial board before the election.

Maybe his position evolved over time?

Maybe he saw the same polling lots of people saw at that time?

My favorite theory is he was so unhappy with what liberals did to his LOTR series he became a republican.

In reality its probably because his number 1 focus is Blue Origin and he needs government support for this.

The purpose of an op-ed section is to present opinions independent from the editorial positions. So it can’t be the editorial positions as such that he’s worried about.

>Obviously he does not feel that he can do so now, with so much of Amazon’s business in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.

Why do you assume that Bezos, or any of these tech giants, are anti-Trump? Have you considered that, like a huge chunk of the rest of the country, they actually support what's happening (to varying degrees)?

Why is it the left feels that their beliefs are the "normal" ones?

> Why is it the left feels that their beliefs are the "normal" ones?

Why is it that all the most insane politician worshipers (left and right) feel that their tinfoil-hat extremist beliefs are "normal"? The lunatics have been increasingly "running the asylum" for quite a while now, and more and more cult-followers been jumpin' on-board with the insanity year after year. It's like watchin' a slow-motion train-wreck.

Left: people should be able to live decent lives

Right: what about our billionaires and the free market

America doesn't really have a left AFAIK.

Centrist: why can't we all just get along?

That "huge chunk of the country" was a little less than half of the subset of Americans who actually voted.

The left's beliefs are the "normal" ones. Remember, this fact is why the right is so afraid of the cultural influence of "city dwellers" (read - leftists) and the popular vote versus the Electoral College, which exists to bias Presidential elections in favor of rural culture. Roe v. Wade was repealed despite widespread popular support. The majority of Americans favor nationalized education and healthcare, LGBTQ rights and gay marriage.

I mean, you're right that Bezos probably isn't anti-Trump, no capitalist is really anti-Trump, but like a lot of people you seem to be poisoned by Trumpist propaganda. Trumpism has never been a majority view in the US, it has always been a tyranny of the minority.

I’m sure he loves the antitrust case against Amazon as much as he loved losing the JEDI contract the first time around.

Yes, it’s clear that a lot of people are for a party that now openly sieg-heils on stage (it’s not just Musk, he started a trend)

This is useful information to have, and I, for one won’t be forgetting it.

Here's the thing that bothers me.

In opposition to this someone would likely say "You were ok when liberals were censoring everything, and now the shoe's on the other foot, go shove it"

But actually, someone deciding to make biased media doesn't bother me that much. I mean, it's not great, I would prefer X have non-partisan ownership, but it happens, and free societies have an exhaust valve, particularly America:

People are contrarian. The more you see conservatives try to control media in avoidable ways, the more people will fight that influence. In the wake of the election Meidas Touch, a liberal podcast just overtook Joe Rogan.

The thing that concerns me is this: I think some people in power know this. Well I think all people in power know this, and I think some people currently in power who are intent on doing something about it.

I appreciate your balanced view. It reminds me of “I disagree with your opinion, but will defend your right to share it” (paraphrased)

Isn’t X’s ownership less bias now? You don’t get banned for mainstream political opinions anymore, and the fact-checking seems less biased (as evidence: Elon gets hit with community notes all the time). Certainly Elon makes a bigger scene, but politically he seems more center than Jack was. I mean it wasn’t that many months ago that Elon was considered a solid blue Democrat

Elon's opinions and moderation preferences have changed quite severely since he was considered a solid blue Democrat. He no longer allows himself to be hit with community notes, for example, ever since he was community noted for spreading misinformation about the Ukranian president's approval ratings.

Elon gets hit with community notes all the time, just last week he made a post to the effect of “the fed doesn’t use SQL” and community notes was on him almost immediately.

That would be https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1889062581848944961, which I agree was community noted before he intervened to remove it.

> Isn’t X’s ownership less bias now?

No, decidedly not. The prior ownership may have been a little too close the government in the type of conversations they have. The current owner is arguably literally the government and may hold more sway over the Republican leadership than the president of the United States.

Like a year ago your argument may have made sense. Now… I’d love to hear your rational objective argument why Musk is less biased than Dorsey.

Try opening X with new account and tell me there is no more bias now. In my completely non politician X I keep getting cringe Elon takes and some other far right content. One might argue there is less moderation (which is also not true btw), but there is definitely much more bias than it used to be.

I don't think so, because not all opinions have equal power. By allowing nazis and white supremacists a safe haven, you inadvertently shift the entire platform right. Because those opinions are so extreme, even those who disagree are nudged in that direction. Whereas centrist or slightly left-leaning opinions, which describes almost all of the American left, don't create that much inertia. It's easy to say "I'm not a nazi, but <insert more tame conservative opinion>".

Just intuitively from what I've seen, there's been a large cultural shift towards the right in the past 5-10 years. I believe the internet is general is the primary cause of it. Extreme opinion are given space, even if they're not taking 100% seriously. They don't need to be, it's a spectrum, and even just 5% humor leads to being more right than you were before.

This could, maybe, be balanced if there were an equal number of extremists on the left. But there just isn't. I don't see communist gatherings. I don't see communist twitter accounts. I'll see a communist here and there, but even at worse it's almost always a democratic socialist. I don't see communists committing a January 6th. Point is, the extreme right goes unchallenged in their extremism, and the moderate voices of the modern left are essentially being drowned out.

The end result is Twitter is decidedly conservative facing overall. And, really, the entire country, and, possibly, the whole world.

Put a pair of fake boobs in front of Bezos and he’ll do anything

The industry that awards the Joseph Pulitzer Prize has absolutely no legs to stand on.

Insane hypocrisy to think that the owner of a newspaper doesn't have the right and obligation to set its editorial direction.

Business is business. He can start his own newspaper if he wants to.

This is explicitly not about the editorial direction, but about op-eds, which are opinion pieces outside the editorial line. Of course a newspaper has largely the right to publish whatever it likes, but this new policy just increases the filter bubble and intellectual isolation, regardless of the editorial line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed

He absolutely has the right. It destroys the credibility of the paper, but he bought it so he can break it.

Generally, newspaper publishers leave editorial decisions to editors, i.e. people who have decades of experience rather than zero experience. So while it's not his obligation, it's definitely his right.

And the former editor has the right to not help him destroy what little remains of the newspaper industry.

I think you're confusing "has the right to" with "has the right to without criticism or consequence."

I'm not. I'm saying that the critics are hypocrites.

Bezos didn't start the Washington Post. He used his insane wealth to steal an established institution. Same with Elon and Twitter. It is the unchecked power of insane wealth that is tearing this country apart.

Of course the owner has that right. Hell, Bezos has the right to fire all the editorial staff and fill the newspaper with AI selected Amazon product reviews if he wants.

What you seem to be objecting to is any kind of reaction to Bezos using that right. Of course people have feelings about his choice, of course they have a right to air them and to judge Bezos by his actions.

Bezos has the right to do so.

We have the right to criticize him for doing so and for pointing out the damaging effects on a free press.

Message from Bezos: https://x.com/jeffbezos/status/1894757287052362088

Honestly this seems like an important step to me. The WaPo had become too polarized in a direction Americans and international readers didn’t recognize, and I think it’ll be good to try and center the paper politically again

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