5 ms·

Do you have any indication that Bezos is exercising editorial control? According to a Poynter interview [1], Marty Baron, editor at the Washington Post, says "

by pg314 10y ago

Do you have any indication that Bezos is exercising editorial control? According to a Poynter interview [1], Marty Baron, editor at the Washington Post, says "Bezos doesn't try to influence editors". The Washington Post doesn't seem to avoid putting Amazon into a negative daylight either. E.g. the article [2] mentioning Amazon using cobalt from dubious sources. Pushing the narrative that traditional newspapers like the Washington Post are propaganda tools without supporting evidence, looks suspiciously like propaganda in itself. [1] https://www.poynter.org/2016/marty-baron-on-spotlight-jeff-bezos-donald-trump-and-the-slow-death-of-printed-news/442691/ https://www.poynter.org/2016/marty-baron-on-spotlight-jeff-b... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c...

puranjay 10y ago
> According to a Poynter interview [1], Marty Baron, editor at the Washington Post, says "Bezos doesn't try to influence editors". Gee, I wonder why the editor won't publicly admit that the man who pays his salary maybe sometimes try to influence him
- pmyteh 10y ago
  I think you underestimate the importance of culture in organisations, and particularly the fierce independence maintained by the 'news' side of the major American press from the 'money' side. They care a lot about editorial independence and I'm quite sure they would shout if it happened rather than lie about it. The same strictures don't apply, for example, in the UK (my country) which has much more fluid boundaries between journalists and proprietors. Were I to read something similar about the Sun, for example, I would be pretty sceptical...
  - 67726e 10y ago
    > I think you underestimate the importance of culture in organisations, and particularly the fierce independence maintained by the 'news' side of the major American press from the 'money' side. They care a lot about editorial independence and I'm quite sure they would shout if it happened rather than lie about it. > in the UK (my country) Yeah, maybe you being in a different country might be the issue here. I'm not going to comment on news in your country, I'm not entirely knowledgeable. If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years is how terrible the major news outlets are, ranging from obvious mouthpieces for various political causes to how little fact checking they do. Hell, there was a fairly prominent mistrial in Charleston last month and a major news outlet took a picture of a several year old protest from a completely different state and posted it talking about protests and riots after the mistrial. There wasn't a damned thing. At this point I really cannot trust much of anything that is reported by these organizations. It's a joke.
    - pmyteh 10y ago
      I'm also a research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and I read (bits of) the US papers most days; I'm not just randomly speculating. There are lots of things wrong with the US media. Institutional groupthink is definitively a thing. He-said-she-said reporting is also problematic and deeply embedded in US journalistic culture. Sub editing and before-publication fact checking of breaking news stories varies between fine and woeful. Look. The New York Times and Washington Post have a liberal culture. They're written by well-paid mainly white guys, who live in Democratic cities. Their worldview is mainly establishment-progressive, notwithstanding their attempts to provide balance on the op-ed pages. But given that, you should understand that they are fundamentally honest organisations. They try hard to get their stories right, they argue internally about the right thing to do, and they're prepared to take expensive and difficult stands on principle - e.g. protection of sources in court or publishing stories like the Pentagon Papers. Other news organizations with different cultural biases but high standards also exist - the WSJ and the Financial Times being two. There is a massive difference between the NY Posts, Breitbarts, Daily Mails, and other people who are actively trying to sell you a pup, and news organisations which are flawed but honest. You do yourself and the world a disservice by lumping them in together.
      - hackermailman 10y ago
        The difference is only selection of stories to print. NYT/Post/Breitbart won't publish stories that go against their worldview and select stories that do. You aren't allowed to just make up stories in any of those orgs you mentioned but you can select what not to publish and what to sensationalize, and play political newspeak with copy such as rebels VS insurgents VS terrorists ect.
        pmyteh 10y ago
        You absolutely can publish stuff which is known to be false in the Daily Mail, which is one reason it's a tendentious rag. I don't know enough about the NYP's attitudes to known falsehoods to know if that's true for them or not. I would be astonished if a politically useful and commercially popular story were spiked by Breitbart because the editors weren't sure it stood up. This is common even with papers like the Guardian, who are way less fastidious than the NYT and WP. But sure, story selection is for sure a product of what a given outlet considers 'newsworthy', which has political bias (conscious or otherwise) baked in.
  - eternalban 10y ago
    It is not the "money side" that directs propaganda. That meme itself is propaganda to soften minds. Directing propaganda is the job of intelligence agencies. The main geopolitical divide between power/intelligence factions in US in past few decades has been, and remains, the question of China-Russia relationship. One camp believed the Sino-Soviet break was real and bet the Western farm on integrating China into the Western order. The other camp did not believe and used this very same publication, The Washington Post, to set into motion the removal of Nixon (who initiated the openning of China). Given Washington Post's over the top anti-Russian stance these days, and the incoming clique's equally over the top statements viz a viz China ("bad") and Russia ("good"), what we're seeing here is either a real or theatrical conflict between factions that has spilled over to the propaganda organs of powerful Americans.
    - mistermann 10y ago
      > what we're seeing here is either a real or theatrical conflict between factions that has spilled over I agree, and the difference in tone between the original article and this would seem to agree...to me the difference seemed extremely odd, as if something else is happening to cause it.
SixSigma 10y ago
He doesn't need to directly do anything. "I wonder what Jeff will think of this?" Reflect on Orwell's "Freedom of the Press" http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go

by pg314 10y ago

puranjay 10y ago

> According to a Poynter interview [1], Marty Baron, editor at the Washington Post, says "Bezos doesn't try to influence editors". Gee, I wonder why the editor won't publicly admit that the man who pays his salary maybe sometimes try to influence him

pmyteh 10y ago
I think you underestimate the importance of culture in organisations, and particularly the fierce independence maintained by the 'news' side of the major American press from the 'money' side. They care a lot about editorial independence and I'm quite sure they would shout if it happened rather than lie about it. The same strictures don't apply, for example, in the UK (my country) which has much more fluid boundaries between journalists and proprietors. Were I to read something similar about the Sun, for example, I would be pretty sceptical...
- 67726e 10y ago
  > I think you underestimate the importance of culture in organisations, and particularly the fierce independence maintained by the 'news' side of the major American press from the 'money' side. They care a lot about editorial independence and I'm quite sure they would shout if it happened rather than lie about it. > in the UK (my country) Yeah, maybe you being in a different country might be the issue here. I'm not going to comment on news in your country, I'm not entirely knowledgeable. If there's one thing I've learned in the past few years is how terrible the major news outlets are, ranging from obvious mouthpieces for various political causes to how little fact checking they do. Hell, there was a fairly prominent mistrial in Charleston last month and a major news outlet took a picture of a several year old protest from a completely different state and posted it talking about protests and riots after the mistrial. There wasn't a damned thing. At this point I really cannot trust much of anything that is reported by these organizations. It's a joke.
  - pmyteh 10y ago
    I'm also a research fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and I read (bits of) the US papers most days; I'm not just randomly speculating. There are lots of things wrong with the US media. Institutional groupthink is definitively a thing. He-said-she-said reporting is also problematic and deeply embedded in US journalistic culture. Sub editing and before-publication fact checking of breaking news stories varies between fine and woeful. Look. The New York Times and Washington Post have a liberal culture. They're written by well-paid mainly white guys, who live in Democratic cities. Their worldview is mainly establishment-progressive, notwithstanding their attempts to provide balance on the op-ed pages. But given that, you should understand that they are fundamentally honest organisations. They try hard to get their stories right, they argue internally about the right thing to do, and they're prepared to take expensive and difficult stands on principle - e.g. protection of sources in court or publishing stories like the Pentagon Papers. Other news organizations with different cultural biases but high standards also exist - the WSJ and the Financial Times being two. There is a massive difference between the NY Posts, Breitbarts, Daily Mails, and other people who are actively trying to sell you a pup, and news organisations which are flawed but honest. You do yourself and the world a disservice by lumping them in together.
    - hackermailman 10y ago
      The difference is only selection of stories to print. NYT/Post/Breitbart won't publish stories that go against their worldview and select stories that do. You aren't allowed to just make up stories in any of those orgs you mentioned but you can select what not to publish and what to sensationalize, and play political newspeak with copy such as rebels VS insurgents VS terrorists ect.
      - pmyteh 10y ago
        You absolutely can publish stuff which is known to be false in the Daily Mail, which is one reason it's a tendentious rag. I don't know enough about the NYP's attitudes to known falsehoods to know if that's true for them or not. I would be astonished if a politically useful and commercially popular story were spiked by Breitbart because the editors weren't sure it stood up. This is common even with papers like the Guardian, who are way less fastidious than the NYT and WP. But sure, story selection is for sure a product of what a given outlet considers 'newsworthy', which has political bias (conscious or otherwise) baked in.
- eternalban 10y ago
  It is not the "money side" that directs propaganda. That meme itself is propaganda to soften minds. Directing propaganda is the job of intelligence agencies. The main geopolitical divide between power/intelligence factions in US in past few decades has been, and remains, the question of China-Russia relationship. One camp believed the Sino-Soviet break was real and bet the Western farm on integrating China into the Western order. The other camp did not believe and used this very same publication, The Washington Post, to set into motion the removal of Nixon (who initiated the openning of China). Given Washington Post's over the top anti-Russian stance these days, and the incoming clique's equally over the top statements viz a viz China ("bad") and Russia ("good"), what we're seeing here is either a real or theatrical conflict between factions that has spilled over to the propaganda organs of powerful Americans.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    > what we're seeing here is either a real or theatrical conflict between factions that has spilled over I agree, and the difference in tone between the original article and this would seem to agree...to me the difference seemed extremely odd, as if something else is happening to cause it.

SixSigma 10y ago

He doesn't need to directly do anything. "I wonder what Jeff will think of this?" Reflect on Orwell's "Freedom of the Press" http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go