8 ms·

To be honest, the Amazon Prime thing makes me pause for a moment. What happens when Amazon is involved in a scandal, what will WaPo do?

eropple 9y ago
They will report it, or you will see editors and journalists leave. You see it regularly at compromised outlets. (I do not believe in the slightest that the Washington Post is so compromised.)
- harry8 9y ago
  The Times of London The Wall Street Journal
  - argonaut 9y ago
    The editorial department of the WSJ is almost certainly "compromised" (in the sense that they have political opinions and loyalties), but that is true of even the NY Times. The actual reporting at the WSJ is still legit.
    - harry8 9y ago
      What you describe is the state of affairs before Rupert Murdoch purchases the paper.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        A decade before, maybe; WSJ news coverage had become infected by the same slant that their editorial content had long before Murdoch bought it.
zhengyi13 9y ago
The LA Times showed Disney plenty of integrity and determination, and at least one writer from WaPo supported them in that. I'd expect the larger organization to show a similar level of integrity.
legitster 9y ago
To be fair, WaPo has run a few anti-Amazon and anti-Bezos op-eds. It feels like moreso than before. I can't help but feel like Bezos loves them. I can see him open up the paper he owns, see an attack piece on him, and feel absolutely giddy that he's not going to do anything about it. Because he so desperately wants to be the most self-actualized entrepreneur that ever lived.
tradersam 9y ago
I had a large argument about this on r/conspiracy with someone recently. They were claiming since the CIA uses AWS to the tune of ~$900 million a year, the CIA has a direct line to WaPo. Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue, but it does pose an interesting, all be it slight, conflict.
- mikeokner 9y ago
  > Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue Guess I'm irrational then. $900M/yr is an insanely substantial chunk of change for even the largest companies in the world.
  - jtmcmc 9y ago
    in 2016 amazon's annual revenue was 136 billion dollars. That means it was .66% of it's total revenue. I would argue that the potential damage to Amazon's brand is quite a bit more than that.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    That's $900M/yr of revenue. At AWS. And the WashPo is entirely different company. Nope.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      Not to mention that's less than 10% of Amazon yearly revenue from AWS alone.[1] Gambling an entire business on the fact that nobody will find out you're giving away their proprietary information just for an extra bump in revenue of a couple points does not sound sane to me. For another perspective, the profit AWS generates is multiples of that entire $900M. 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-over-12-billion-in-revenue-2017-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-o...
    - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
      They also built them AWS Secret.
peterwwillis 9y ago
Amazon has many different interests, much of which could be affected by negative press. Amazon has a 600 Million dollar contract with the CIA, and regularly does business with many other agencies of the US government. It would be safe to say that between its fledgeling media content group, its online sales group, and its cloud computing group, there are a huge range of potential conflicts of interest between its news-reporting subsidiary and the others. Besides the fact that it is not in the interests of the company to report in a way that could negatively affect the stock price, it is also in its interests not to report negatively on topics which could impact its lucrative customer contracts. And on top of it all, if Bezos - the richest man in the world - just gets something in his craw, that could also affect what gets reported, as it has been with every media baron in history.
- mulmen 9y ago
  WaPo is not a subsidiary of Amazon.

eropple 9y ago

They will report it, or you will see editors and journalists leave. You see it regularly at compromised outlets. (I do not believe in the slightest that the Washington Post is so compromised.)

harry8 9y ago
The Times of London The Wall Street Journal
- argonaut 9y ago
  The editorial department of the WSJ is almost certainly "compromised" (in the sense that they have political opinions and loyalties), but that is true of even the NY Times. The actual reporting at the WSJ is still legit.
  - harry8 9y ago
    What you describe is the state of affairs before Rupert Murdoch purchases the paper.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      A decade before, maybe; WSJ news coverage had become infected by the same slant that their editorial content had long before Murdoch bought it.

zhengyi13 9y ago

The LA Times showed Disney plenty of integrity and determination, and at least one writer from WaPo supported them in that. I'd expect the larger organization to show a similar level of integrity.

legitster 9y ago

To be fair, WaPo has run a few anti-Amazon and anti-Bezos op-eds. It feels like moreso than before. I can't help but feel like Bezos loves them. I can see him open up the paper he owns, see an attack piece on him, and feel absolutely giddy that he's not going to do anything about it. Because he so desperately wants to be the most self-actualized entrepreneur that ever lived.

tradersam 9y ago

I had a large argument about this on r/conspiracy with someone recently. They were claiming since the CIA uses AWS to the tune of ~$900 million a year, the CIA has a direct line to WaPo. Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue, but it does pose an interesting, all be it slight, conflict.

mikeokner 9y ago
> Any rational person (including the Post editor who commented on it) would agree this is a non-issue Guess I'm irrational then. $900M/yr is an insanely substantial chunk of change for even the largest companies in the world.
- jtmcmc 9y ago
  in 2016 amazon's annual revenue was 136 billion dollars. That means it was .66% of it's total revenue. I would argue that the potential damage to Amazon's brand is quite a bit more than that.
- CalChris 9y ago
  That's $900M/yr of revenue. At AWS. And the WashPo is entirely different company. Nope.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Not to mention that's less than 10% of Amazon yearly revenue from AWS alone.[1] Gambling an entire business on the fact that nobody will find out you're giving away their proprietary information just for an extra bump in revenue of a couple points does not sound sane to me. For another perspective, the profit AWS generates is multiples of that entire $900M. 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-over-12-billion-in-revenue-2017-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-o...
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    They also built them AWS Secret.

peterwwillis 9y ago

Amazon has many different interests, much of which could be affected by negative press. Amazon has a 600 Million dollar contract with the CIA, and regularly does business with many other agencies of the US government. It would be safe to say that between its fledgeling media content group, its online sales group, and its cloud computing group, there are a huge range of potential conflicts of interest between its news-reporting subsidiary and the others. Besides the fact that it is not in the interests of the company to report in a way that could negatively affect the stock price, it is also in its interests not to report negatively on topics which could impact its lucrative customer contracts. And on top of it all, if Bezos - the richest man in the world - just gets something in his craw, that could also affect what gets reported, as it has been with every media baron in history.

mulmen 9y ago
WaPo is not a subsidiary of Amazon.