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Jeff Bezos Defends Decision to Buy Washington Post
- projectramo 10y agoWell, I don't really see Bezos' defense of the decision to buy the Washington Post, because I don't see a critique of the decision. The presumption here is that there was some kind of implicit criticism, but I don't really see that. Trump did attack Bezos, but that was not for buying it. (If I recall correctly, it was some convoluted theory about Bezos worrying Trump would increase his tax burden). Is there a critique that Bezos should have let the Washington Post collapse rather than buy it? Have there been any reports that he is exerting editorial influence?
- jamesfe 10y agoAs 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.
- nxzero 10y agoWaPo is dead; RIP.
- baldfat 10y agoEvery criticism on the Washington Post can be used against 99% of Newspapers in America. The transition to web has been rough and the ability to still turn a profit for a for profit business is difficult. I think the New York Times has done the best so far and Wall Street Journal is the industry leader. I can't think of a single example of doing a better job minus NYT and WSJ.
- nxzero 10y agoA paper "transitioning" has nothing to do with if the spirit of the paper is alive; aka WaPo spirit is dead, company lives on. 99% of the papers in the US are trash; the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself.
- baldfat 10y ago> the fact that you'd compare WaPo to them speaks to your knowledge of the industry and WaPo itself. Someone is emotional? Washington Post is in trouble like the rest of the newspapers in American deserves this response?
- nxzero 10y agoHow many papers have you read the staff written content from, what news did they cover, what was the quality of that content on average, etc.?
- baldfat 10y agoI got a big 4.0 in my Undergraduate Degree and was Valedictorian. I had to studied two dead languages and had all my last 30 credits from Graduate Level classwork. I scored in the top 90% on the GRE and MAT test. Wow guess that is also not important about the general decline of Newspapers and their business models. This is a easy observation on the decline of journalism and newspapers. Unless you deem everyone unable to form a observation on general newspapers?
- massysett 10y agoI started reading the Post regularly after moving to the DC area in 2001. Over the past ten years the paper has been garbage. It regularly promotes tabloid "news" that is of no consequence but that, I suppose, they believe gathers page views. Other stories are riddled with factual errors--just recently I read a story that got the numbers wrong in a House committee roll call vote. The paper routinely infuriated me so I stopped reading it (except when I have to for my job, which is how I am aware of the recent factual error.) I have seen some of the poor quality under Bezos, but to be fair I can't tell whether it has gotten better or worse because I am so disgusted with their reputation that I generally just don't read it.
- samstave 10y agoDidn't cmdr_taco go work there some time ago? What happened to him?
- snowwrestler 10y agoHe went to go work for a "labs" type startup that borrowed the Post's name, which I believe was not included in the sale to Bezos.
- slaunchwise 10y ago"Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism" Sorry, can't let this go unchallenged. WaPo was THE beacon of fine journalism for decades. Life existed before the 90s.
- scott_s 10y agoAgreed. This is the paper that Woodward and Bernstein worked for when they investigated and broke the Watergate story: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/woodstein/
- danso 10y agoAnd even in the 00s, pre-Bezos, it was hitting stuff out of the park: 2014 - Stop and Seize -- this series about police confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists without charging crimes was a hugely eye-opening piece of investigative journalism...was widely discussed on HN too, IIRC: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/stop-and-seize-2/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/st... 2013 - The WaPo shared in the Snowden-related Pulitzer, but on its own, I feel that it did some of the best work off of the material -- both in a technical and journalistic sense, including this one about NSA infiltrating Google data centers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-i... 2010 - Top Secret America -- this to me was a highly underrated project that attempted to expose how utterly out-of-control and ungainly America's national security apparatus is. If you read it before the Snowden revelations, you probably would have just nodded your head: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ And many more...It's unfortunate that a lot of resources are now being poured into aggregate-Upworthy-baity-headline crap...but honestly, even that material is pretty good. It's just super unfortunate that their headline writer has completely engorged themselves on social media marketing. WaPo truly has some of the worst headlines of any professional publication today. edit: as an example of some of the great work under the "PostEverything" banner, which seems like kind of the WaPo's attempt to compete with Vox/BuzzFeed/Daily Mail...I bookmarked this piece from a widow trying to explain how "the second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first"...one of the few non-technical bookmarks on my Pinboard. In retrospect, the headline isn't bad, but the writing is still profound...I've actually been visiting WaPo via URL directly just to see what guest columns have been published...just need a plugin to hide the headlines: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/when-the-second-year-of-widowhood-is-harder/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/...
- danielweber 10y agoAre there editors at the Washington Post? I wrote in about some questions about an article, and no one responded. Not even a form letter.
- anotherhacker 10y agoTo be fair, this has affected all publications. E.g. The Economist and New York Times. Also, "yellow journalism" is nothing new. It's a big reason why William Randolph Hearst became a gazillionair all those years ago.
- zjaffee 10y agoWhile yes, the Washington Post has become more focused on new media, its really only them and the NYTimes that have successfully transitioned (as much as one could really expect) into new media. The websites and mobile apps for these companies are awesome, especially compared to many TV channels and other old newspapers. Additionally, in todays day and age, its clickbait that pays the bills, but that doesn't mean that it takes away from real journalism, you just have to recognize that not ever article will be as high quality. Movie Production companies have been doing this forever, I.E. Cars 2 pays for Inside Out. Even Buzzfeed has real journalism tucked in there. Its sad, but quality journalism both makes less money and costs more to produce, and budgets for these stories have to come from somewhere.
- diydsp 10y agoThe 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 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.
- GCA10 10y agoHello? Peel back the calendar, decade by decade, and tell me if you can ever find an era where information publishers were owned by people who were truly pure of heart. It's always been an industry that attracts rich folks with egos. Hearst? Henry Luce? Col. McCormick (Chicago Tribune and the aptly named WGN broadcasting properties, for World's Greatest Newspaper)? Ted Turner/CNN? Folks like Joseph Pulitzer tidied up their reputations at the end. But when they were at their prime, they hustled the system as well as anyone. At least Bezos (and Omidyar) are putting capital into an industry that's generally been bled for dividends and slowly liquidated. No publication is perfect. No owner comes close. But as long as lots of different outlets present different versions of what's going on, a lot of valuable information gradually makes its way into the public domain.
- Someone1234 10y agoThere 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.
- TillE 10y agoThis isn't the worst article of the election cycle from a major newspaper, but it surely deserves some kind of award for "worst application of data journalism": https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/18/bernie-sanders-keeps-saying-his-average-donation-is-27-but-it-really-isnt/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/18/be...
- tamana 10y agoGotta give them credit for adding a disclaimer at the top, saying they admit article is trash.
- peterkshultz 10y agoNo 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"
- shimon_e 10y agoTrump's comments on Bezos / Washington Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD22O0y5VV0&feature=youtu.be&t=90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD22O0y5VV0&feature=youtu.be...
- pyrale 10y ago"he takes on ever larger civic and business challenges." That's a nice way of saying he invests in lobbying tools.
- alttab 10y agoYeah, shame in trying to use money to get something done these days, like save the planet.
- SCAQTony 10y agoThe last sentence shows an extraordinary goal set: "...He predicted that heavy industry would move off the planet and “earth will be zoned residential and light industrial.”..."
- keithpeter 10y agoYes, 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.
- ams6110 10y agoI 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.
- bencollier49 10y agoHe's just trying to out-vision Elon Musk, whose idealistic leaps are looking less and less implausible by the day.
- alttab 10y agoI wouldn't go that far. The only thing he's done really well is sell cars at $100k a pop with a fancy battery and computer at a loss. Visionary sure - but the fruits of his labor are still unborn, especially when burning/raising that much cash!
- thieving_magpie 10y agoUnder his ownership the paper has gone even further south in terms of being a trash publication. I've filtered it out of my news sites.
- kendallpark 10y agoI'm no journalism connoisseur, so take this with several grains of salt. I've always enjoyed the WP more than other non-paywall news sources due what I perceive to be less political slant (beats Huff-post, hands down). What would you guys say the political slant of WP is? Is there some quality non-paywall news source I'm missing?
- ghaff 10y agoFrom 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.
- tamana 10y agoTry 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.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoI think it's reasonable to view an outspoken owner has having organizational and cultural impact on his business enterprises in concert with personal gravity. As in, if the WaPo is taking on some elements of Bezos' attitude or interests, that's a natural evolution and adjustment. For example, he's ambitious, and if he brings that ambition to the WaPo, then yes, it will likely be an issue with 'traditional' culture, or it might be a welcome change. It's hard to tell from the outside. To me, Mark Cuban is a pretty good example in his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks. A relatively media savvy guy pushes his organization to be media savvy as well. Recently as evidenced by starting up a local entertainment firm "Another Mavricks Production" to partner with acts like Ludacris for fanbase engagement. Is that "anti-NBA" just because it's kind of new? I don't see it that way. And, just as a closing thought, if Trump thinks the WaPo isn't treating him fairly, well, if Gawker manages to survive long enough to get around to flaying him in public, I'd probably click on the article.
- tamana 10y agoA 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
- 6stringmerc 10y agoYeah, he hired a Hall of Fame coach and won an NBA championship. They were a real bottom of the barrel team for ages. Cuban's fingerprints are all over going from "Terrible" to "Competitive" and I think that has to do with his wallet and attitude and attitude about his wallet.
- barkingcat 10y agoWhy would he need to defend buying something? It's his personal funds (not Amazon) so it's like having Steve Balmer defend buying the LA Clippers. The LA Clippers sold for 2 billion. The Washington Post sold for 250 million. Why is no one demanding that Balmer explain whether he's a good owner for the Clippers?
- gist 10y agoNot 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.
- criddell 10y agoGood point. And with the recent talk about Thiel using his substantial resources to punish Gawker, maybe we should be keep a critical eye on billionaires buying newspapers.
- ricw 10y agoOne 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 :).
- ProAm 10y ago> 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 Why? Newspapers have rarely been unbiased or uninfluenced by money, especially from politics (whether they be left or right leaning), the fact that it changed owners doesn't mean anything?
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- fiatmoney 10y agoYou buy a media outlet because you want media power - ie, political power. Direct profitability is a side effect at best, the point is to advocate for policies and coverage that allow you to make money by other means. Look at NYT's ever-so-delicate handling of Carlos Slim and issues that relate to him, ever since he bought 1/6 of them. Not a whole lot of criticism of his telecom monopoly or his effect on Mexican politics, lots of advocacy for policies that drive international phone calls.
- zjaffee 10y agoSure, 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.
- dahdum 10y agoThe voting power is held privately, and Carlos Slim loaned them 250 million to keep the lights on several years ago, before increasing his ownership to 1/6. I have to believe he holds significant influence over their decisions, and any journalist raking him over the coals would see their career prospects at the NYTimes effectively end. That said, Bezos owning the Washington Post seems worse still to me.
- perseusprime11 10y agoI totally see him running for the President in 2028.