The Exodus from the Washington Post | Hacker News Reader

The Exodus from the Washington Post

cjr.org

24 pointsxrayarx11 comments

I cancelled my WaPo subscription after Bezos personally intervened to block what to me seemed like an obvious endorsement of Harris and then scolded us all a few days later. No American should allow themselves to be scold by an oligarch without rebuke, and unsubscribing is the only way to do that.

Despite what the article says, it's pretty easy to decide that Bezos' direct and one step indirect decisions are what's driving WaPo downhill. Given the size of the comment sections on WaPo articles and opinions, it's difficult for me to believe that Bezos is doing these changes because of some surge of reader sentiment. Giving an intern a week in the comments, or doing some old school sentiment analysis of them would tell you that WaPo's news slant and fact checking slant were massively unpopular. This is another example of an oligarch's personal opinions pit in action that wreck an institution.

I'm genuinely curious about your rationale to cancel your subscription after the endorsement was pulled. I have a friend who did the same and haven't had a chance to chat with him about why either.

I am still a Post subscriber, and I wasn't bothered by them removing the Harris endorsement. I personally don't like the idea that a paper should be endorsing ANY candidate. It just feels very "we know better than you, listen to us" which is against the spirit of the press, in my opinion.

I definitely would've had a bigger issue had Bezos forced them to endorse Trump (partly because I don't like the idea of endorsements, and I wouldn't have agreed with their endorsement, but most importantly that the owner is now tipping the scales).

But in this case, the result was a neutral one (they didn't endorse anyone), isn't that what we want from our newspapers? To be neutral during elections and just report what's going on?

> isn't that what we want from our newspapers? To be neutral during elections and just report what's going on?

I prefer when newspaper have a stated affiliation. I.e. 'Fancy Party X' or 'unbound whateverist' etc. Pretending they are neutral just makes you wonder who they actually support.

> isn't that what we want from our newspapers? To be neutral during elections and just report what's going on?

There's no such thing as 'neutral' in the media business. Bezos did not endorse Trump but he left his fellow oligarch to fund and promote him without a counter-balance.

Bezos craves Trump's policies because they strongly support monopolistic entities like him - deregulation, tariffs for market cornering, inflation, high deficit and low taxes for high profits. These are policies that make Bezos richer, assuming he cares about anything else is severe misunderstanding of the oligarchic mind.

There's no material reason to believe that Bezos is sincere in his "centrist" posturing, such believes can only be due to mental impairment or conflicts of interest. Thus, people who are smart and don't like being played are dropping his paper.

I cancelled my subscription about the same time. The lack of an endorsement is best seen in the context of their choice of headlines and otherwise soft coverage of Trump’s increasingly dictatorial behavior. Taken out of context, it might seem innocuous and perhaps even admirable that no candidate was endorsed, but it’s in the comparison of being overly uncritical of Trump and then not advocating for Harris that gave all those subscribers a reason to cancel.

Direct owner influence of an editorial decision. If an owner does this, they're almost certainly meddling directly otherwise. WaPo lost my trust in 2 days.

I'd been wondering why their coverage of Trump was so flattering, and that explained it.

Aren't Americans also scolded by oligarchs, via the media that oligarchs own, when the scolding is of the type with which you agree?

Isn't oligarch decision making what causes media to also pursue directions with which you agree?

Maybe. Bezos' editorial was pretty direct, and I felt insulting.

As to your second question: no. Every billionaire is a policy mistake.

What's the practical difference between A Bezos editorial and an editorial board editorial from a paper that he owns?

Whether I'm scolded by Bezos or Bezos's editorial board, it's still being scolded by Bezos. Or whomever owns the next media outlet in question.

After all if Bezos openly controls the editorial direction of the paper at any point in time, then it would be ridiculous to assume that any media outlet's editorial staff is not directionally influenced by their employer generally.

You don't believe that media ownership by any given billionaire influences media opinion with which you agree?

That's a strange take for someone whom I assume asserts a moral logic in their worldview. How can billionaires only be guilty of media control when you disagree with the editorial direction?

What does "every billionaire is a policy mistake mean" in the context of my second question? Your comment seems like a non sequitur.

I'm not sure if Bezo's plan is outright sabotage of a venerable media outlet (how did we go from Bernstein and Woodward to the current editorial train wreck?), or if he got a new toy and never knew exactly what to do with it and we are just observing simple incompetence.

DC is in major need of a journalistic reboot. I predict a new-comer dominates in the next 3 years.

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