29 ms·

Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris

• voidfunc 2y ago
  Not antagonizing the likely future POTUS is smart business especially when said future POTUS is known to lash out with retaliatory rhetoric and actions.
• Devasta 2y ago
  A cowards way of endorsing Trump, to be honest.
  • coldpie 2y ago
    Regardless of its impact on the election, this decision ends the Washington Post a serious news organization. Prior to this, you could reasonably trust it as a decent source, if questionable on tech & Amazon stories due to the ownership bias. After this, it's clear that Bezos purchased it with intent to push his own views. It's no longer a reliable source for news, it's just a mouthpiece for Amazon & Bezos's other companies. Sad to see an important newspaper die in this way. I hope the people that do good work there are able to find new employment.
    • briandear 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • belter 2y ago
    At this point it's just tax optimization...
    • dr_ 2y ago
      or perhaps because Blue Origin hopes to do business with the Government? Just a thought. A non issue for the NYTimes but for the owners of WaPo and LA Times…
• coding123 2y ago
  There is definitely a quiet support among the faang owners for Trump.
  • Molitor5901 2y ago
    I think they, like even some on the left, have reasoned that Trump will only be there for four years. That's it. He's gone, or in jail. That's four years they know who their opponent will be and the Democratic Party can prepare. Thinking a long game, it is possible the left has given up and said fine, let's get it over with.
    • kccoder 2y ago
      I haven't met a single person on the left with the mindset you described. I'm not saying they don't exist, I just can't imagine it represents more than a fraction of a percent of the left. It seems like more on the left believe that if Trump is elected, we are unlikely to see another fair election.
      • TMWNN 2y ago
        >It seems like more on the left believe that if Trump is elected, we are unlikely to see another fair election. Don't listen to what they say, Look at what they do. Breaking Points back in July, while discussing the Trump-Biden debate <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV8ULfwTneE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV8ULfwTneE> (which I highly recommend watching; it's the single best sum-up), pointed out two things for those who claim (to believe) the above: * If TrumpNaziKKK being reelected means "no more elections ever", shouldn't Democrats have originally chosen someone other than a living corpse as his opponent? * While discussing how the many plans among Democrats like Newsom, Whitmer, etc. (and their successors) for 2028 were disrupted/forced up by the potential to replace Biden (before Kamala's abrupt coronation), they again pointed out the paradox of on the one hand claiming that Trump will abolish elections, and on the other hand having plans for running to replacing Trump in 2028. Read this June New York Times interview of Whitmer. <https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/22/magazine/gretchen-whitmer-interview.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/22/magazine/gretchen-whitmer...> Strange, how she doesn't say (despite being very specific about things like the plot against her) that "if Trump wins, there won't be elections in 2028 and all non-MAGAtards will be executed by Trumptroopers". You'd think that would be something of sufficient urgency to repeat at every public opportunity. Almost as if actual Democratic leaders don't really believe the rhetoric they have so successfully foisted upon their supporters, including 75% of Redditors. Another example: Post-Trump/Biden debate, Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) explicitly denying that Trump's reelection will threaten American democracy <https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/07/02/opinion/opinion-contributor/jared-golden-donald-trump-going-to-win-election-democracy-be-just-fine/ https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/07/02/opinion/opinion-c...>. Yet another example: After discussing Golden's op-ed, Ezra Klein citing other Democrats who privately admit to him <https://x.com/Timodc/status/1811136469911711877 https://x.com/Timodc/status/1811136469911711877> that a) they don't believe Trump is an "existential threat to democracy", and don't know why others say that, and b) that's why they aren't speaking out about Biden stepping down, because they believe the damage to their own careers from doing so is a greater threat than Trump winning Yet another example, perhaps the most prominent of all: Biden telling George Stephanopoulos that if he loses to Trump then, well, "I'll feel, as long as I gave it my all and I did as goodest as I know I can do, that's what this is about". If he was the only person who can save the country from Orange Hitler, would that really be the extent of Biden's reaction? Really?!?
• BurningFrog 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • kccoder 2y ago
    Even if one is Bozo and the other is Pennywise?
• legitster 2y ago
  There's an irony here, the WaPo news room has become quite political in the last decade. But the editorial board has decided to be apolitical. Everything is backwards.
  • croes 2y ago
    Did they? > An endorsement of Harris had been drafted by Post editorial page staffers but had yet to be published, according to two sources briefed on the sequence of events who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — according to the same sources. Seems it’s just Bezos
  • tasty_freeze 2y ago
    You didn't read the article. The board had written an endorsement of Harris. But it was killed at the demand of Bezos.
• Molitor5901 2y ago
  To play Devils Advocate for a moment: Why do we need, or even want, a newspaper to endorse a President? How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?
  • jfoster 2y ago
    I would extend that to all businesses. For the sake of the business & their customers it's usually best to keep politics out of it.
    • mandevil 2y ago
      As long as the Post has an editorial page, with people employed to share their opinions, what are they supposed to do? Opinion and reporting are separate- famously the WSJ reporting is quite strong and their opinion section is ... often wrong- but as long as an opinion section exists that's kinda their job, to share their opinion. If you want to get rid of opinion that might be a reasonable thing (with cable news and the internet no one has a shortage of opinion these days!) but doing it in such a ham-fisted way so close to the election is not a sign of a carefully thought-out business decision, it's a sign of cowardice.
      • jfoster 2y ago
        They could share their opinions on the policies of each candidate. That could be great at helping people see perspectives other than their own, so that they can weigh it all up and make their own decision. Doing an endorsement is kind of the opposite of that, because it is essentially telling readers "you don't need to decide, we have done it for you."
        • mandevil 2y ago
          Counterpoint: the biggest problem facing opinion journalism today is the competition. Actual news reporting is expensive and slow and sometimes doesn't pan out, isn't very profitable and there isn't that much of it. But you can get opinion everywhere these days- cable TV news, internet streamers, internet articles, it's everywhere. That suggests that there is actually a huge demand for highly opinionated work (and also that it is remarkably cheap to produce), but whether it's something like Daily Kos or Free Beacon or Alex Jones or Newsmax, it seems like everyone can find their own personal brand of opinion journalism that both flatters their own pre-existing opinions and at the same time molds them. Lots of narrowband broadcasting in that space, and the daily papers are really struggling with their goal of broad reach- they are getting outcompeted in each specific niche by a specialty player that caters to a much smaller, more specific set of opinions. (They try to have a diverse range of OpEd columnists, hoping that if you don't agree with Paul Krugman maybe you'll like David French, but that's a hard thing to pull off these days when your competition is just people of one specific ideological wedge.) In theory your idea would be good, except when I look at the market I don't see anyone actually succeeding at that, which suggests to me that it's not actually a very large market of consumers.
• wumeow 2y ago
  "Democracy dies in darkness" and silence, apparently.
  • good8675309 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • aftbit 2y ago
      [flagged]
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    • wumeow 2y ago
      The majority of Democrats wanted Biden to drop out and approve of Harris as the nominee https://apnews.com/article/poll-joe-biden-kamala-harris-donald-trump-1feb5ed3c2e29623ce3cec3565b487cd https://apnews.com/article/poll-joe-biden-kamala-harris-dona...
      • brandur 2y ago
        The point is that Democratic voters didn't get a chance to have their voice heard. Conducting polling is post-hoc rationalization for Harris being installed by party leaders in unprecedentedly anti-democratic action.
        • archagon 2y ago
          If the presidential candidate wishes to hand the reins over to his vice president, why is he not allowed to do that?
          • Maxatar 2y ago
            He is allowed, it's just doesn't follow a democratic process.
• ErikAugust 2y ago
  Does Bezos have uber-intel, and knows Trump is going to win?
  • slater 2y ago
    lol... maybe he does? Number of trump signs vs. harris signs bought on Amazon? (yes i know Jeff doesn't work there, but y'know...)
    • HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
      Any sign of strength than can be bought (i.e. fake strength), probably already has been bought by Musk and/or others trying for influence the election. They say the sudden betting market swing for Trump from a few weeks ago comes from overseas money (4 people, maybe all the same), but I'd not be surprised if Musk were behind it given that he's out there trying to buy people's votes.
      • webninja 2y ago
        On one hand, overseas money in betting markets has less bias and more neutrality. Example: a man in Australia does not care who wins and is able to see it all as an outsider from above. Regardless of whether he is gay or straight. Foreign politics is not connected to their identity and foreign politics does not map over neatly to domestic politics. You’re able to see this for yourself when you travel to other countries and talk to people you meet about the politics in their country in person. Suddenly, magically, you’re able to see both or all sides and actually listen instead of selectively listen. On the other hand, one would say people closer to the issue are the more informed ones and that’s usually correct. A counter point is people closer to the issue are being targeted by more advertising and usually we associate targeted advertising with causing a populace to become more misinformed rather than more informed. The primary media bias every year is calling elections closer than they actually are. Because if the media outlets and the pollsters they hired said any given election wasn’t close, people would check the news less and the media’s primary customers, the advertisers, would be sad about their ads reaching less eyeballs. What is your opinion about foreign views and foreign bets on foreign elections?
• wormlord 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • vermilingua 2y ago
    Do you really think Harris and co are able or willing to end capitalism? They have nearly as much to lose as the billionaires.
    • wormlord 2y ago
      Of course not. However they are like 5% more willing to pursue anti-trust action and enforce regulations. Even a small threat like that will be resisted by the ultra wealthy.
      • csallen 2y ago
        Agreed, but that's just them voting for their interests, not voting to end democracy.
        • wormlord 2y ago
          The destruction of democracy is a convenient byproduct of their consolidation of power. Fascism in germany was convenient for the wealthy-- even if they weren't the architects of it.
          • bamboozled 2y ago
            In the long term was it a good thing for the wealthy though ?
          • csallen 2y ago
            The idea that the rich in America, as a class, want the destruction of democracy, is laughable. Few people want to overturn a system that's making them millions.
      • olliej 2y ago
• daft_pink 2y ago
  Is anyone really changing their mind based on some newspaper endorsement? I’m pretty sure everyone knows who they’re gonna vote for at this point.
  • moduspol 2y ago
    Now we'll never know who the Washington Post's editorial board would have endorsed. At least Taylor Swift was able to make her recommendation, so I know I'm all set.
    • AStonesThrow 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • bitwize 2y ago
        Taylor Swift is a billionaire from record and concert ticket sales alone. Between that and her endorsement of Harris, we're lucky to have one billionaire out there with legitimate wealth, unafraid to use it to effect positive change.
        • iwontberude 2y ago
          [flagged]
        • BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
          She came from wealth, dude, her parents manufactured her success at a young age. Did you seriously listen to that music and think it was grassroots success from raw talent?
          • bitwize 2y ago
            What it is is highly marketable. There's no denying she has talent -- as a savvy businesswoman -- to crack the code of what her audience wants to hear so well she can churn out music that people will pay top dollar to see performed live.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• benatkin 2y ago
  So they aren't going to endorse either candidate. If I didn't have context about the situation, I'd say it makes sense. However I think that in this flawed two-party situation, there is unfairness on both sides, resulting in some sort of balance, and it's bad that one of the richest people on earth could upset the balance in this way, especially at the last moment. Article from 2020: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/28/editorial-board-endorsement-joe-biden/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/28/editorial...
  • dclowd9901 2y ago
    Yeah, I think you’re missing the point a bit here: the fear of endorsing the “wrong” candidate, as it would lead to loss of profit by the owning company, is what led to the axing of the endorsement. Call it what you want: profit and political strongarming silenced a newspaper.
    • benatkin 2y ago
      You could have created a top-level comment instead of replying to mine. I don't see how your reply is about my take on it and isn't just your completely different take on the issue.
    • CalChris 2y ago
      It's just political strongarming. The Washington Post is not profitable.
      • dclowd9901 2y ago
        Bezos made the call because he was afraid of Trump canceling lucrative Pentagon AWS contracts. WaPo is a loss leader, AWS is his bread and butter.
      • eigart 2y ago
        It’s Amazons, Blue origin, AWS profits he’s fearful for, not WaPo.
• 73kl4453dz 2y ago
  What's even the point of being a billionaire if you're still scared of Trump?
  • greenthrow 2y ago
    Why is everyone in this thread pushing the idea that Bezos is scared of Trump? It seems more plausible to me he is scared of the DoJ breaking up Amazon under Harris.
    • eigart 2y ago
      Has anyone brought that up? In the current administration? In the campaign?
      • 93po 2y ago
        what happens behind closed doors is entirely different than what makes the papers. i am positive bezos has spoken to trump, and i am positive trump assured bezos of something that harris did not
        • tredfjgkkl543 2y ago
          A rational person would know that many past promises or reassurances offered by Donald Trump have proved to be empty, worthless and even costly to their recipients, as documented by countless legal actions. If Bezos believes what Trump has told him behind closed doors, then his companies are in the control of a sucker, not just a coward.
          • 93po 2y ago
            legal action does not show reality, people can sue for nearly no reason at all, and people have large political and PR reasons to sue Trump for posturing reasons. we have very little idea what trump's track record is for making deals because the vast majority of it isn't public. to base your entire opinion of him based on tabloids and biased corporate news and pretend that literally nothing ever happens that isn't public is not going to give you a realistic picture. i am sure there are also dozens of high profile examples of deals that were public and went just fine. obligatory trump is terrible is racist etc. not defending trump, just highlighting questionable logic
• h2odragon 2y ago
  https://www.semafor.com/article/10/25/2024/editor-resign-subscribers-cancel-as-washington-post-non-endorsement-prompts-crisis-at-bezos-paper https://www.semafor.com/article/10/25/2024/editor-resign-sub...
• moduspol 2y ago
  More interesting to me is that this is the third tech billionaire to take a decidedly different stance than he did previously. Musk is quite active, but even Zuckerberg took a much more neutral stance for 2024. Honestly I'm more surprised that Bezos even bothered. Does he really think the endorsement of The Washington Post editorial board is so significant that it's worth intervening? That seems implausible.
  • eigart 2y ago
    I would say Zuck went as far right as reasonably possible, and his timing was good. Kind of cowardly, but also impressive foresight on his part.
    • throwaway48476 2y ago
      That's absurd. His political donations are very blue.
  • TylerE 2y ago
    All signs point to this being an extraordinarily tight election. 5 or 10k votes in the right state could swing the whole thing.
    • TacticalCoder 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • Lightbody 2y ago
        >It's not for no reason that one state had more registered voters than the actual number of eligible voters in that state. https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2024/10/24/michigan-registered-voters-active-more-than-population/ https://www.votebeat.org/michigan/2024/10/24/michigan-regist...
      • crummy 2y ago
        The polls show Harris and Trump are neck and neck, but the only explanation for a Harris win is fraud?
• bamboozled 2y ago
  Actively making the Democrats chance of winning less likely for your own personal interests is shortsighted. Jeff still needs customers, he needs a sane society where his businesses can operate from ? Sorry but the leader of the Republican Party is completely unhinged. Bezos might get away with a tax break or avoid some other legal scrutiny or even Trumps gestapo hit squad,but wow, you’re giving up a lot for a little. Actions like this completely undermine one of the main reasons people believe Trump should be president. Which is that he is too rich to be bought. Well, look at the rich people being bought by their own greed and shortsightedness now.
  • timeon 2y ago
    > he needs a sane society where his businesses can operate from ? As someone from Eastern Europe I do not think that any oligarch really needs this.
  • 627467 2y ago
    > making Democrats chance of winning less likely Do you vote according to what others tell you to? Or do you believe most other people do so blindly? Dem voters will stay home because they didn't read a papers opinion? Or you believe that others can't tell the stance of a newspaper regarding a candidate from their reporting on them?
• jmcclell 2y ago
  It makes sense in so much as "it's a risk to our business to endorse Harris because of the risk of falling afoul of Trump's vindictive nature should he win." From a fiduciary standpoint, I agree with that assessment. From the standpoint of a citizen, I find the implication alarming. I do believe that this is the reasoning behind the decision, but it is certainly speculation on my part.
  • archagon 2y ago
    A newspaper that succumbs to fear of reprisal fails completely in its principal duty and becomes little more than a propaganda rag.
    • throwaway48476 2y ago
      It was always a propaganda outlet. Only now more people see it.
  • Animats 2y ago
    A statement along those lines should appear in the next 10-Q filing, under business risks.
  • bitwize 2y ago
    This is why we need to repeal and replace the First Amendment with an amendment that guarantees freedom of expression within the bounds of civilized discourse (e.g., open Nazism=crime) and severely punishes government officials who use their power to stifle such expression. The First Amendment, as written, protects speech that oughtn't be protected, and fails to protect speech that ought to be protected, hence the current situation with the Washington Post being cowed into withdrawing their endorsement by the threat of a vindictive Trump. Countries with no First Amendment, where hate speech is in fact criminalized, routinely score higher on international free-speech indices than the USA because in the USA the government, especially the Republican Party, has the means and the will to intimidate the press into silence or capitulation.
    • bigstrat2003 2y ago
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• ahnick 2y ago
  It seems like it would be less polarizing if it was the default state for news and information outlets to not endorse any candidate ever and just remain as neutral as possible.
  • good8675309 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • nobodyandproud 2y ago
      I definitely remember the 1990s differently. They still had endorsements, but it just wasn’t spelled out that way. Instead, just prominent opinions, hit pieces, etc.
      • iwontberude 2y ago
        I do remember the 1990s where it was typically local newspapers doing explicit endorsements and it was almost always limited to local candidates and issues.
    • bydo 2y ago
      The Washington Post has endorsed a candidate every election cycle since 1976, with the exception of 1988. The New York Times has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since its founding in 1851.
      • goostavos 2y ago
        Just because it has always been done doesn't make it good. It's surprising to me that a news organization not publishing an opinion piece is itself giant front page news
        • newswasboring 2y ago
          What's so bad about large institutions in the opinion shaping space endorsing?
• objektif 2y ago
  Good because newspapers should not be endorsing candidates.
  • stogot 2y ago
    This is probably the most important topic here. It reveals their bias/partisonship and turns the whole newspaper into an opinion piece
    • favorited 2y ago
      > turns the whole newspaper into an opinion piece The Editorial Board pens endorsements. It is literally an opinion piece, in the section of the paper reserved for opinion pieces.
    • sangnoir 2y ago
      Consider the editorial board to be the equivalent of Fox's Opinion shows. They opinion side if the house is nominally independent from the News-gathering operations. If you're arguing purveyors of news should not carey opinion-pieces l, you may be a few centuries too late.
      • objektif 2y ago
        Why do you think what Fox is doing is our standard? Why do we need Editorial Board’s biased opinion. Can we not have a truly unbiased journalism outlet?
  • tasty_freeze 2y ago
    It is one thing to be neutral when one candidate wants more military spending and a lower top income tax bracket and the other is in favor of higher taxes on top and more social spending. But in this case one candidate literally tried to subvert the last election. Even ignoring all his other issues, that one is enough to say we shouldn't vote for him.
    • bigstrat2003 2y ago
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  Related: The Washington Post says it will not endorse a candidate for president https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41948631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41948631
• archagon 2y ago
  [flagged]
• htk 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • HPsquared 2y ago
    That's basically the entire history of publishing.
    • olyjohn 2y ago
      What does that mean? That it's good, that it's bad? Should we just keep doing things because that's what we've always done?
  • HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    It's called an editorial. Newpapers have them.
  • felixgallo 2y ago
    Wait until they tell this guy about Fox News.
  • swatcoder 2y ago
    What an odd view of history to imagine that newspapers weren't always (and importantly) open about their editor's opinions. The idea of "objective journalism" is both ahistorical and unsound and mostly just acts as cover for claiming that certain journalism has subjectivity we're not allowed to call out. It's far better to know how the editors see the world than to falsely pretend that they don't.
  • moomin 2y ago
    If the Washington Post only reported facts, it would be the most left wing newspaper in the US by a country mile.
  • mjfl 2y ago
    For the past 100 years, literally since WWI, all media organizations have been used to constantly launder opinions into the brains of the American people, disguised as 'fact'.
• nextworddev 2y ago
  He knows something
  • fullshark 2y ago
    He knows Trump will hold it against him, and his probability of becoming president is nonzero.
    • foobarian 2y ago
      Yes but if I was a richer than God billionaire what would I care that POTUS had a grudge. What's he gonna do, audit my taxes? There is something fishy going on.
      • papercrane 2y ago
        He'd care about getting government contracts. For example, during the Trump administration the Pentagon chose Microsoft over AWS for JEDI. AWS claimed there was political interference that favoured MS. Obviously Bezos will be rich with or without these contracts, but he'd prefer to be richer.
    • jeffbee 2y ago
      More importantly, he knows that Harris administration will not seek retribution. So he sees nothing to lose here.
  • malermeister 2y ago
    He knows that one of the key pillars of fascism is the strengthening of corporate power. Billionaires are not your friends.
  • futureshock 2y ago
    Yes we can infer. His political leanings are fairly Democrat. His media puppet is very left leaning. He didn’t announce this policy years ago when it would have been a nothing burger, instead just a couple weeks before the election as a splashy egg on face moment. I can smell fish. His best information is that he was backing the wrong horse and now he is scrambling to contain the damage. Because it’s also quite a slap to the Harris campaign, he must not think much of their chances or sees a very, very asymmetrical risk profile here. Snub versus scorched earth. We are going to be in for a very interesting four years.
• janalsncm 2y ago
  > CNBC has requested comment from Amazon. According to the article, Jeff Bezos is presumably afraid that Trump would continue to punish Amazon. If that is the case, this seems like an entirely futile exercise. Not that corporate PR responses are ever particularly illuminating. I read an article regarding information conveyed per syllable. English was near the top. Languages with less information per syllable like Spanish were spoken faster. In dead last place were PR statements from Fortune 500 companies.
  • jeffbee 2y ago
    Imagine taking as many steroids as Jeff Bezos has taken, only to end up being afraid of an obese elderly man who cheats at golf. What was the point of all that flexing?
    • energy123 2y ago
      On a serious note, this is an example of what historian Timothy Snyder refers to as "obeying in advance", where people predict what a repressive government will want and then obey before they're in power just to be safe. This creates a positive feedback loop that leads to them seizing power.
      • janalsncm 2y ago
        I read that book but didn’t connect the dots here. That is terrifying.
      • jeffbee 2y ago
        I am serious! But yes.
    • arp242 2y ago
      Well, he does have a reasonable chance to be elected to presidency, so there's that. Morality and general spinelessness aside, it's clearly the sensible thing to do. You might anger a few sensible people but that will pass. Trump is not exactly known to be forgiving. Remember when he refused emergency aid to states that weren't supportive enough of him? That's the sort of decrepit small-minded snowflake we're talking about.
• morkalork 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • selectodude 2y ago
    Yeah, we really are in denial.
  • throwaway19972 2y ago
    To be clear, the camps never went away, and we’ve been mass deporting for decades now. Support of ICE is a bipartisan effort. Iirc the only change Biden made was to end the policy of family separations. The rhetoric is massively different, but the actual policy is not. I really wouldn’t hold my breath for a president that doesn’t fearmonger about immigration in the forseeable future.
    • jimbiliy325 2y ago
      [flagged]
  • mjfl 2y ago
    the genocide doesn't give you some form of perspective?
  • edmundsauto 2y ago
    One candidate has proposed a day of violence and given indications they consider “anyone who disagrees with me” as an “enemy within”. I don’t think they have talked about televised tribunals, and they also have a … tenuous … relationship with the truth or following through on promises (even when baselines against normal “politician lie rate”)
    • mjfl 2y ago
      the genocide doesn't give you any form of perspective?
      • edmundsauto 2y ago
• greenthrow 2y ago
  So many times HN posters have extolled how Bezos hasn't interfered with the WaPo and those of us who expressed concern about his purchase were chicken littles. It has never been true and it's plain as day now. He bought it for the same reason Musk bought Twitter. To have control over a media outlet he values.
  • ajross 2y ago
    Well, it might have been true until now. Certainly there's no previous good evidence for Bezos-directed coverage or editing at the Post. But regardless: you were right. I was one of the folks who viewed him as a basically benign entity who, sure, had opinions of his own, but clearly would never put his fingers on the editorial scale. And I was wrong, and he isn't.
    • Slava_Propanei 2y ago
      [dead]
  • vagab0nd 2y ago
    If you have that kind of money, why wouldn't you do that?
    • ribosometronome 2y ago
      They're not really saying Bezo or Musk are acting illogically. He's lamenting everyone who has set with their heads buried in the sand and pretended they aren't doing the things they're doing.
      • EasyMark 2y ago
        Not really, there was no proof, just speculation with no evidence. In this case there is plenty of evidence that Bezos put his finger on the scale. See the editor resigning and likely there will be others to follow. He said he was hands off when he bought it, but here we are.
    • 2y ago
• adamc 2y ago
  Good reason not to subscribe to the WP.
  • null0pointer 2y ago
    Why?
    • adamc 2y ago
      I don't want to read a newspaper where the owner is suppressing -- well, anything -- because of concerns for how it might affect his fortune. I want the owner walled off.
      • Thuggery 2y ago
        Well you have been. The consent was always being manufactured. A certain controversial fellow by the name of Chomsky pointed out decades ago that media would inevitably reflect biases of their owners and staff, and the needs to be a for profit business. It would seem you didn't care or notice because there previously wasn't an opinion conflict with the owners.
        • adamc 2y ago
          Everything ever written reflects biases. That isn't the interesting part.
  • topspin 2y ago
    There you are! The correct response. Should this not fall under the "private company, do what they want" mantra we were all so fond of wrt (pre-Musk...) Twitter, Facebook, et al? The further advice then was; "make your own social media platform." Same thing happened at LA times a few days ago, also replete with an editor quitting, when owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the same Kamala endorsement. You're free to not subscribe, some editor or other is free to quit, and owners are free to do as they please with their private property. Freedom. What a great idea.
• seper8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • frugalmail 2y ago
    >after he fell down the stairs I think Biden fell UP stairs more often on camera. Recent paper came out suggesting that classifying media coverage of major media outlets identified something like a 94% positive take for Kamala and a 98% negative take for Trump. I think the media companies gave up the mask a while ago. James O'keefe had a great undercover journalism piece where one the producer's of MSNBC outright said they are a propaganda arm for the DNC.
  • ribosometronome 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2024_Unite... ???
  • dang 2y ago
    Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we've already had to warn you about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41790409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41790409). If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. On this particular topic please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41950993 also.
• znpy 2y ago
  it's all disagree and commit until the big boss comes and says to "just commit". didn't success and scale bring responsibility ? i guess Bezos can bend the leadership principles back and forth the way it best fits his current needs.
• deleted 2y ago
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• dang 2y ago
  All: when commenting, please stick to this story, and don't do flamewar or generic electoral battle as that's not what the site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• dotnet00 2y ago
  I like this trend of taking neutral positions that seems to be picking up again, although the timing for this doesn't look good. Just as how universities are starting to adopt neutrality, so should news outlets.
  • georgeecollins 2y ago
    Endorsements come opinions editors, a special part of the paper where the paper prints opinions, not news. I agree that it would be nice if news outlets tried to always be neutral, but a lot of TV news channels in the US would have almost nothing to say if you stopped their opinion reporting.
    • soerxpso 2y ago
      If they have nothing to say, maybe nobody needs to hear it.
      • willturman 2y ago
        Maybe? It’s almost a certainty that the news media outlets are outright bullshit and/or attention sucking propaganda. https://fs.blog/stop-reading-news/ https://fs.blog/stop-reading-news/
        • lancesells 2y ago
          https://www.washingtonpost.com https://www.washingtonpost.com I don't disagree with some of the things that blog post is saying, but excluding the opinions on the Washington Post home page, where is the is outright bullshit or propaganda? I hear the opinion often but I don't see it when I go to a newspaper. Now if you were to go to the home page of reddit or twitter there's clearly tons of propaganda.
          • willturman 2y ago
            1. Immediacy trumps quality. The current headline on the Washington post is talking about Israeli strikes in Iran. Is that the most immediate event pertaining to Israel? Probably. Is that the most important recent event pertaining to Israel? Well, that depends, doesn’t it?
• oysterville 2y ago
  Did people really think that billionaires wanted to buy major press outlets for profit expectations? Controlling the narrative was always the plan. Unless it's private equity. They just strip it bare and put it out of business.
  • eapressoandcats 2y ago
    People did warn about it at the time too. I fail to see why being upset about the bad thing actually happening means people didn’t think that was the plan.
• deleted 2y ago
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• lapcat 2y ago
  Newspapers publish opinions for the same reason that they publish comic strips: people want to read them. Readers seek them out. Newspapers are a business and have to give their customers what they want. The problematic aspect here is that the current business owner, Jeff Bezos, has a conflict of interest. Bezos is making a bad business decision for The Washington Post, sacrificing it and losing readers for the sake of his other business interests, i.e., government contracts. It's unlikely that an independent owner with no conflict of interest would make the same decision.
  • nickff 2y ago
    You seem to be implying that he made a decision based on other business interests, against those of the Post, but there is no support for that in the article. Do you have a source which describes this motive? It seems like not endorsing candidates might be good for the Washington Post's business, by improving its perceived impartiality. In addition to this, the WaPo seems to have spent much of its history not endorsing candidates, and it has been doing (financially) poorly recently; perhaps this is a return to more profitable and credible roots.
    • standardUser 2y ago
      Trump has repeatedly threatened media companies he thinks have wronged him with specific actions he's said he will take as president. Bezos has a whole business empire to worry about that goes way beyond WaPo. He doesn't need a petty president trying to wreck his bottom line for 4 years. And with a business that big, Trump has a lot of ways he could cause trouble.
      • nickff 2y ago
        This is definitely a potential motive, but there are many of those, and we have no reason to believe this is actually what led to Bezos’ decision.
        • standardUser 2y ago
• karmasimida 2y ago
  It is ironic because Washington Post is the most left leaning of all major news paper. Their endorsement is really a no-op, because there is really only one candidate they could ever consider.
  • deepsquirrelnet 2y ago
    And yet here we are without an endorsement. Significant by your own admission.
    • karmasimida 2y ago
      [flagged]
    • refurb 2y ago
      That doesn't logically follow at all. We're "here without an endorsement" because the media machine decides to talk about it, not because it's significant. The most influential power the media has is what they decide to write about and what they don't. They don't report the news, they make the news.
      • addandsubtract 2y ago
        It doesn't need to follow any logic. Trump is going to use it as an argument and his base is going to parrot it.
        • refurb 2y ago
          > It doesn't need to follow any logic. Sure it does, when someone says "logically it follows" then there needs to be a logical argument.
• carbatterylife 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • swatcoder 2y ago
    The traditional ideal is that editors and journalists exercise a freedom of practice that owners don't intefere with, much the same as the academic freedom tenured professors are traditionally given at universities. In practice, that's of course not the case (in either domain), but it predictably makes front page news when an owner acts too egregiously domineering.
  • gilbetron 2y ago
    [flagged]
  • noirbot 2y ago
    Sure, but then Bezos should be writing something explaining it. Instead, he's silently just using his money to squash opinions he doesn't agree with. The is the exact sort of conspiracy that Trump likes to claim where Soros is the reason anyone doesn't endorse him, except now it literally happened and it's to help him, and he turned around and took a meeting with Blue Origin right after.
  • thimabi 2y ago
    > Couldn't a simple answer here be that he felt Kamala is unqualified and terrible and as a newspaper with a lot of readership and influence, he decided against endorsing her? Sure, but why should the personal opinion of the owner of the newspaper prevail over the opinion of the editorial staff?
    • bogantech 2y ago
      Because he owns the paper and they don't
    • roenxi 2y ago
      Because they own the newspaper. The question answers itself. There isn't any reason some random employee should have their opinion privileged over the owner. Or vice versa, to be fair, but the joy of being an owner is being able to pull rank. If an owner can't get decisions made in a way that is favourable to them then there are very real questions about whether they are, in fact, owning the company.
• dangsucksdick1 2y ago
  [dead]
• SkipperCat 2y ago
  Democracy dies in darkness was a promise, not a warning.
  • nomdep 2y ago
    I'm sick of this absurd FUD. You surely must realize that the claims that if Trump wins, democracy is going to end are just fearmongering, don't you?
    • soupbowl 2y ago
      How is it FUD? The last time Trump was elected Democracy died... didn't it? /s
      • dymk 2y ago
        He tried his best during his presidency, and has continued to do so since losing the last election.
      • w0de0 2y ago
        Yeah - let’s give the moronic narcissist a second chance, since he was stymied by entrenched republican institutions and own incompetence the first time. It is only fair!
    • Spivak 2y ago
      Do I need to trot out the list of dictators who were democratically elected? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/politics/trump-officials-letter-fascist-john-kelly.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/us/politics/trump-officia... These aren't nobodies, they aren't the only ones close to him saying this, and that's before his public statements. The bulk of Project 2025 is a how-to guide for rooting out administrative disloyalty. I don't think he'll be successful but I don't want to deal with the shit he's going to cause in the attempt. It would be really really easy to make everyone feel better by nominating literally anyone else, preferably a Moderate Republican. I'll personally go door to door campaigning for them if it means not Trump.
    • 2y ago
• jrflowers 2y ago
  I like that many people here have speculated that Bezos simply wants to avoid the ire of a possible Trump administration. This is very charitable, so much so that it ignores another reasonable guess a person could make based off of the same objective information that we all have — that this action is an endorsement, and the person that chose to endorse a candidate did so because he wants them to win. On one hand you can imagine that Bezos somehow wants a Harris presidency but doesn’t want to appear that way out of fear, but that sounds more fantastical and wishful than “The guy whose company is currently trying to wholesale eliminate the National Labor Relations Board(1) likes Trump’s policies and wants him to win”, especially when you think about what’s going on with the other guy(2) that’s trying to destroy the NLRB. Sometimes when people indicate they want something to happen it is because they want that thing to happen. 1 https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-joins-companies-arguing-us-labor-board-is-unconstitutional-2024-02-16/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-joins-companies-ar... 2 https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-leaps-into-the-meme-history-books-at-trump-rally-2000508235 https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-leaps-into-the-meme-history-bo...
  • unit_circle 2y ago
    This is so obviously the nail on the head. Shocked how far I had to scroll
    • deleted 2y ago
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  • laidoffamazon 2y ago
    I think the act of spiking the endorsement sends a stronger signal than the lack of endorsement. He could always make his own endorsement, but he didn't. I don't know what's in his head. I just know that Trump sources are saying it's because of fear of reprisal [0] [0]: https://x.com/gabrielsherman/status/1849960615197966648 https://x.com/gabrielsherman/status/1849960615197966648
  • matwood 2y ago
    I think it can be both. In scenario planning it makes sense for billionaires with large business empires to vote for Trump. One, the few details that can be determined from his platform are around lowering taxes on the very rich and making it easier for them make more money. Two, Trump has been pretty clear in his rhetoric he holds a grudge and will use the government to punish anyone who he perceives is against him. Taken together, there is little to no downside in supporting Trump, even if Harris wins. It's not like Harris is threatening to throw people she doesn't like out of the country. Whereas vocally supporting Harris where Trump wins runs the risk of becoming a target. By the way, I think Musk did the same math. He likely thinks/knows Trump is an idiot, but it's almost all upside supporting him and little downside. Plus, Musk is likely still upset he was left out of a Whitehouse summit on EVs a few years ago. Regardless of what people think of Musk that was BS, and I wonder if that snub is part of what led him to come out in support of Trump so vocally.
• mmooss 2y ago
  I don't think there could be a more powerful endorsement of Trump so far, much more than if Bezos's paper actually printed an endorsement of him (which would have been laughed at): It's a signal of Trump as extraordinarily powerful, a stronger signal than probably anything else I've seen. That boosts his image among suppoters - remember power is what he sells - and will intimidate many, many more into complying. What journalists and business people, or any elite, will stand up to him now after Bezos and the Washington Post - probably the second most respected news organization in the country - have bent the knee. And it makes a Trump victory look more inevitable, a key selling point for anyone, but especially a populist. When Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong did the same thing recently, "The Trump campaign swiftly shared the ... story with supporters." [0] [0] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/24/nx-s1-5163293/la-times-editor-resigns-trump-msnbc-washington-post https://www.npr.org/2024/10/24/nx-s1-5163293/la-times-editor...
  • ihsw 2y ago
    [dead]
  • rightbyte 2y ago
    I don't get why there is this assumption that Bezos would not just be supporting him. > have bent the knee This sounds a bit like "thedonald" nomenclature?
    • mmooss 2y ago
      > assumption that Bezos would not just be supporting him. Where is that assumption in my GP comment? I said Bezos gave Trump the most powerful endorsement possible. (The rest of the parent is a distraction.)
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        It might be vague: "Bezos and the Washington Post [...] have bent the knee." I read "bent the knee" as some sort of humiliation? I.e. Bezos don't really want to support Trump, but did anyway. Also on "thedonald" it was used as some sort of "humiliated loser folding in line" meme which is why I namedroped it. English is not my native tongue so I get such nuances wrong sometimes.
• jgalt212 2y ago
  > Scientific American makes second-ever endorsement, backs Kamala Harris. This is only the second time in the magazine's 179-year history that it has made an endorsement in a presidential race The first time they ever made an endorsement was (wait for it) 2020! Everything has become political these days. https://www.axios.com/2024/09/16/scientific-american-kamala-harris-2024 https://www.axios.com/2024/09/16/scientific-american-kamala-...
• deleted 2y ago
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• KevinMS 2y ago
  I have no idea who to vote for now.
• throwaway5752 2y ago
  I'm going to rewrite something verbatim the other candidate posted on his social media network: CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation! Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again. We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country. It is right here https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113369255491639591 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1133692554916... He's right there saying it. We're in a slow motion train wreck. Bezos is chickening out because of it. You really might see the end of democracy in America within weeks. Trump is telling you he's going to end it. One of the richest men in the world is listening to him.
  • Slava_Propanei 2y ago
    [dead]
• deleted 2y ago
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• xyst 2y ago
  A single man issued an edict and ended decades of precedent/history. All for the sake of the mighty dollar and ensuring his multibillion dollar fortune doesn’t take a tumble by a 5-10B in the _possibility_ the wrong candidate gets elected. Everything is awful about this. What would it take WaPo away from this horrible person?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• xkbarkar 2y ago
  Cannot in any way understand why this is an actual issue. Sheesh If more newspapers would stay out of endorsing political parties we would live in a better world. Frankly leftist newspaper propaganda has done little but make the rightist ( especially the ones with a racist agenda ) political parties expand massively. Every election i. almost any european country is showing this trend. Why on earth are you all flaming this? Because it means its a hidden Trump support? Kamala is immensly unpopular, outside of all the glam endorsements. She is no Obama thats for sure. How abour adressing the root cause of that? Wow I wish every newspaper was properly unbiased. tldr I think you are all idiots for outrage over lack of proper political bias in a newspaper.
  • eapressoandcats 2y ago
    “Left wing publications caused right wing movements to be popular” is such a lazy trope and terrible “anti-anti-Trump” argument. Thinking that newspapers should stay out of publishing opinions about political parties is basically the most authoritarian position you can take.
• Ankaios 2y ago
  Well, I guess now democracy dies in anticipation of darkness.
  • euroderf 2y ago
    Things that go trump in the night.
• screye 2y ago
  The Venn diagram of those who'd be influenced by a WaPo endorsement and committed Kamala Harris voters is a perfect intersection. For 50 years, WaPo has endorsed the democratic candidate [1] for president. No mystery here. It's a pointless endorsement. [1] https://noahveltman.com/endorsements/ https://noahveltman.com/endorsements/
  • lostdog 2y ago
    The endorsement lets them write why they support the candidate. Laying out the reasons is what could be convincing, and is what's also being blocked here.
    • warner25 2y ago
      I think the intuition of the parent comment is right, but you also make a fair point[1]. I just wonder if you genuinely believe that any prospective Trump voter could be convinced by any argument to vote for Harris at this point. I mean after all the things that have already been written and said by so many, even by Trump himself, and have failed to convince ~47% of Americans that he's unfit to be the president. Honestly, I look at the billions of dollars being poured into political ads, and I can't help but think that it's all a tremendous waste because it's hard to imagine that there's anybody left who didn't already form a strong opinion about Trump at some point over the past ten years. [1] Like even assuming that prospective Trump voters don't read this newspaper, an especially novel or powerful argument could get picked up and spread by other outlets that do reach prospective Trump voters.
      • smokedetector1 2y ago
        Political ads have many purposes, including convincing people to vote for their candidate, instilling a sense of urgency/motivation/purpose to actually get out and vote, and then second order goals like general PR/familiarity for the party, etc.
      • llamaimperative 2y ago
        Undecided voters will decide the election, yes they exist and yes they can change opinions
• wannacboatmovie 2y ago
  I've yet to see an argument against this not delivered in bad faith. If the publication in question was the NY Post, Washington Times, or another center-right newspaper, the very same group currently having a collective meltdown on social media would be praising them with an equally melodramatic "saving democracy" or some other manufactured phrase du jour.
  • noirbot 2y ago
    I'm really not sure of this. The argument I've mostly seen is that the endorsement was always mostly meaningless. If anything, this is a "coverup worse than the crime" situation. Killing the endorsement is much more notable than just letting it happen because it's what everyone was worried about when Bezos bought the paper - that he'd inject his own consideration into it, something he said he wouldn't do. If some billionaire owned the NY Post and banned them from endorsing Trump, that would absolutely be a story as well. I don't think anyone thinks it's not clear who the writers at the NY Post or the Washington Post generally want to win. That makes this whole situation so much more stupid on Bezos's part.
    • wannacboatmovie 2y ago
      > Killing the endorsement is much more notable than just letting it happen It's only notable because the staff was upset and leaked the backstory in retaliation. A newspaper is a business; it's not the town square. Imagine working for a company and going public every time your boss did something you disagreed with.
      • noirbot 2y ago
        That's ignoring that he's running a business that's literally to report on things that important people like him do. An engineer at Amazon's job isn't to write about Amazon's business dealings to the public. The opinion and editorial board of a newspaper is literally there to write about what people like Bezos do. It would have been notable even if they hadn't been public about it, just because the Post has endorsed every presidential race for decades. Eventually someone would have noticed and asked about it, and it just would have come out then. You may as well just say he could silently kill the Kindle line and it wouldn't be a controversy/reported on. He can literally tell Amazon employees to stop making them, but it doesn't mean it's not weird and notable that he's doing it.
• Slava_Propanei 2y ago
  [dead]
• thesuperbigfrog 2y ago
  Just like their motto: "Democracy dies in darkness" Hopefully there are no dark times ahead.
  • e40 2y ago
    Comparing the NYT and WaPo, seems to me the latter is more stridently alerting everyone to the dangers of a Trump presidency, this killed endorsement notwithstanding.
• okr 2y ago
  I think the endorsement was just bad journalism or bad writing and Bezos just did not want to risk it. If such an endorsement would come out in such a divided climate, then i would want it to be excellent. Maybe it was just partisan. Who knows.
  • laidoffamazon 2y ago
    They endorsed in 2020 and 2016 and 2012 and 2008 and if they were so serious about adopting national neutrality they should have announced this in January instead of spiking an existing endorsement
    • JKCalhoun 2y ago
      Honestly too, this seems like the wrong point in history to sit out an election.
    • okr 2y ago
      But this is past. Each time had its own challenges. For example, i learned so much about how media and partisanship works in the past years. It is so obvious and visible to me now. Maybe others feel the same and thats why an endorsement would feel disingenuous. It has to be reasonable and believable. But maybe it was not.
• ulfw 2y ago
  So we have reached the intimidation phase of this election, where businesses owners fear repercussions from Trump (or standing up against him) and his entourage for not supporting him. Reminds me of a certain time in history.
  • laidoffamazon 2y ago
    It's fascinating to compare other countries on the brink of authoritarianism with our own. In other countries it happens because of bread lines and complete dysfunction here it happens despite a country out of war and an economy that's humming along at a brisk pace. It's the equivalent of playing chicken with a train because you're bored.
• keeda 2y ago
  Here’s an alternative take. Note, I’m absolutely not a Bezos fan. Maybe he is just chickening out against Trump and/or fighting against the proposed billionaire tax (which IMO will never happen.) But consider that 1) even with all the damage Trump could do, Bezos will still be richer than god, 2) Bezos did not instruct the Washington Post to endorse Trump, and 3) he doesn’t seem to have asked them to keep things quiet either. So of course this story breaks and of course there is all this media hullabaloo with the upshot being everyone now: * knows that the WaPo was about to endorse Harris. * is reminded that Trump has made official decisions and improperly pressured government matters based on personal feelings. * is aware that even the 2nd richest man in the world fears the personal ire of a presidential candidate in a democracy, ostensibly with a solid rule of law. I hate that this comes across as “he’s the billionaire we deserve, but not the one we need right now, and oh, BTW he's also playing 4D chess," but all this seems very expected. So maybe another way to look at this is: Bezos appears to submit to Trump, which in itself serves as a very publicly warning to the world about what will happen under Trump, and indirectly endorses Harris anyway.
  • laidoffamazon 2y ago
    I don't think he has to do 4D chess to signal support against Trump. He could always just use his giant megaphone to decry Trump as a wannabe dictator that improperly used his own power when he was President to punish his political enemies - something Trump does not shy away from publicly admitting.
    • geoelectric 2y ago
      Yeah, but I wondered about the same thing as GP. It’s one thing to be another voice in the crowd of people all saying the same thing (even a very deep pocketed voice) and another entirely to be the object example everybody discusses by letting it be believed that with all your billions, you’re scared too. People are more affected by things they decide for themselves than things you tell them, hence show don’t tell. Were that to be the case, I wouldn’t consider it 4D chess. It seems like a straightforward strategy to me.
• laidoffamazon 2y ago
  The most kind way to read this is that he is concerned of reprisal, no different than the reprisal he faced from the Saudi government (with likely Trump assistance via David Pecker) in 2019.
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• ulfw 2y ago
  Surely the prospect of a nice little multi billion dollar defense contract from Trump would have nothing to do with it https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4954591-trump-meets-blue-origin-leaders-bezos/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4954591-trump-meets-bl...
• chrisco255 2y ago
  Endorsements have never been without the blessing and influence of the owner of that paper or institution. The extent that an owner lets the editorial team pick an endorsement is the same extent to which they align philosophically. It's an illusion of choice or independence. If papers were meant to be more neutral, I suppose they would need to be owned as cooperatives by the subscribers themselves, assuming the subscribers were balanced and philosophically diverse.
  • eapressoandcats 2y ago
    The key point here is that despite all their biases, the Washington Post and The New York Times were at least perceived as independent, with both of them famously publishing articles that would upset those in power. If their owners feel the need to spike articles unfavorable to the administration, then no more Pentagon Papers etc.
    • silexia 2y ago
      Both publications pretty much only employ far left journalists, and have terrible reputations with Republicans for biased reporting.
  • ajross 2y ago
    Has an owner ever killed an already-written endorsement 11 days out from an election? You're right that there is an implicit assumption that an owner condones the paper's operation. But to exert control like this so specifically and in such a baldly partisan way is unprecedented, thus the resignations both at the Post and the LA Times. It's one thing to hire an editorial staff with whom you agree, it's quite another to step in and overrule their attempt to do the job you hired them to do.
    • jahlove 2y ago
      3 days ago: https://www.semafor.com/article/10/22/2024/los-angeles-times-wont-endorse-for-president https://www.semafor.com/article/10/22/2024/los-angeles-times...
• SamDc73 2y ago
  > "Katharine Graham the previous owner of the Washington Post during the Watergate years was threatened by Holden who famously said, and I will leave out a bit of the quote because it's too crude to say out on the stage, but he said you tell Kate Graham if she prints that we'll put here blank through a big fat ringer, and then they actually worked to try get their broadcast license resented, it's completely un-American, so I guess the only thing I say is as Katharine Graham my role model I'm very willing to let any of my body parts go through a big fat ringer if need be." Jeff Bezos in 2016 when asked about Donald Trump. ^1 I don't think he is pro Trump, but I think he just doesn't want to be on his bad side just in case, just like Zuckerberg he tried to patch his relationship with Trump after he publicly threatened him 1: source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVxubbQQKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVxubbQQKE 1:01:00
  • CalChris 2y ago
    That was Nixon's AG, John Mitchell, who said that and it happened in 1972. Graham died in 2001, well before Eric Holder was ever Attorney General. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Graham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Graham
    • dustincoates 2y ago
      You're right that it was Mitchell, but Bezos wasn't referring to Eric Holder, but to Bob Haldeman, WH CoS under Nixon.
• iambateman 2y ago
  Let’s zoom out from the present election and remember how Bezos took over… The first thing he said was “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.” We, the readers, should require an apology from Bezos for breaking his promise to keep this separate from his other concerns. Until that happens, one must assume that WaPo is permanently compromised in the favor of Bezos’s interests. It’s not about Kamala, it’s about literally everything.
  • anonzzzies 2y ago
    So, like Musk with X.
  • fallingknife 2y ago
    I don't doubt that, but what company isn't compromised in favor of its owner's interests?
    • kuschkufan 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • adr1an 2y ago
        I took the same comment on a different way. To me they're referring to the fact that there are many other media outlets. Not only the big ones that do the same. But the smaller, "independent", that deserve more readers. granted, they may also have interests or agendas. They point is we need decentralization!
      • fallingknife 2y ago
        [flagged]
  • Teever 2y ago
    Does an apology matter? Do we really need one? How will an apology from Bezos improvement life? What would improve mymlife are clear concrete actions not measly words.
• mensetmanusman 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • thimabi 2y ago
    HN is not a living organism, it’s an abstract entity formed by the people who engage in the site. As it happens within any community, there’s no such thing as consistency. In fact, so diverse is this community that I’d wager that luck and chance explain much of what gains traction or gets flagged here.
    • 0xpgm 2y ago
      Majority of HNers are obviously left-leaning, and left-leaning political views always get much more support than right-leaning political views. HN not abstract entity, it is full of living organisms with biases and majority view carries the day.
• mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Remember when 10,000 papers endorsed Hillary?
• whatever1 2y ago
  I thought that having billions buys you freedom. Turns out you still have to lick the boot.
  • throwaway48476 2y ago
    Politics is the new religion. Everyone is cowed by the power if the zealots.
  • xenospn 2y ago
    “Fuck you money” is a myth.
    • reverius42 2y ago
      It’s only a myth if your greed is unbounded. Double digit millions USD should be actual FU money almost anywhere.
  • latexr 2y ago
    Only if your greed is bigger than your pockets. Which is bound to be true for anyone who accumulates this much money and still exploits workers to the degree Amazon does.
• pharos92 2y ago
  We love to objectify the press and pretend they do a service to mankind, but they're just another business.
• Slava_Propanei 2y ago
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• dbsmith83 2y ago
  I find it strange that people are so upset about the absence of an opinion piece from this newspaper. What is the reason? Either you want to be told what to think, or you want everyone else to be told what to think. I think it is the latter. Would there be any outrage here if Fox news decided not to endorse a candidate? I highly doubt it. Some people may like being challenged on what they believe, which is good, but that's probably the edge case
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • metabagel 2y ago
    That’s not exactly what happened. What happened at both the L.A. Times and the Washington Post is that the editorial staff was prepared to endorse Harris until the owner quashed it. That’s what people are upset about. Endorsing Harris is a no-brainer. Quashing an endorsement of Harris reeks of cowardice.
  • w0de0 2y ago
    Perhaps one wants to be told what they - the paper as institution, to include both owners and editorial staff - think. What values do they hold, and why? These inform their reporting content and choices. Moreover, no one thinks well in isolation. Others’ ideas challenge and inform one’s own. To engage, to converse, to question: this is not being told what to think, but rather a catalyst of unique thought. Else why are you posting here?
• 6510 2y ago
  This is great. Now if they could also stop pretending there are only 2 options maybe we could one day have peace in the world.
• stonethrowaway 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • gnabgib 2y ago
    If you flag, please don't also comment that you did. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• refurb 2y ago
  Ok, I actually RTFA and it just seems like a bunch of conjecture over what the reasons might be? Nobody actually knows? And the editorial board's comments seem a bit dramatic? "It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years" How does it represent an abandonment? These editors have been sharing their convictions for the past combined 218 years. I don't think any reader is going to ask "I wonder who the Post is going to endorse"?
• slimebot80 2y ago
  Strangely, the same people who call newspapers "legacy" are all over Twitter calling WP a failure and that people need to cancel their subscriptions. There's a trend among Tech Oligarchs to diminish the role of journalism. Seems to be all about getting slices of government contracts, if not controlling them.
• kbos87 2y ago
  For me, seeing a person or business consciously claim neutrality this year is reprehensible and impossibly out of touch. Whether Bezos likes it or not the business he is in comes with the assumption of an endorsement, and silence is an implicit endorsement. I’d never hold an individual to that standard but power comes with responsibility and this choice is putting his privilege on full display.
• userbinator 2y ago
  What a title. I read the first 3 words, and just had to keep reading the rest of it.
• loongloong 2y ago
  A while ago, the failing/risks of banks that were too exposed to particular sectors (crypto/blockchain) brought some discussion on the merits of diversification of key risks. In a highly partisan landscape with increasing geopolitical tensions, is ownership a key risk to objective news? Is diversification of ownership of news sources a good way to help mitigate that? If so, any good ideas from the HN crowd?
  • elcritch 2y ago
    Maybe restore the Celler-Kefauver act (1)? 1: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/the-celler-kefauver-act.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/the-celler-kefauver-act...
  • silexia 2y ago
    The WaPo is a long, long ways from objective news.
• ruined 2y ago
  clearly bezos is concerned about the present administration's policy regarding weapons exports
• m101 2y ago
  So why is it that this is about money and Amazon contracts? Why isn't it about Kamala just being so bad, in Bezos's eyes, that she doesn't deserve an endorsement. I think that's way more likely. I am not surprised however that the liberal media will look for any problem over admitting it's their own candidate that's the problem. Bezos owns 9% of Amazon. His personal share of any 10bn contract might be a few hundred million over many years. He doesn't care!
  • edanm 2y ago
    > Bezos owns 9% of Amazon. His personal share of any 10bn contract might be a few hundred million over many years. He doesn't care! The rest of your comment aside, I think this sentence proves too much. You can use it to prove that Bezos doesn't care about almost anything in Amazon, or that most billionaires don't care much about what happens in their companies, because it only impacts a small part of their already vast fortune. It's pretty clear that this is not true for many billionaires.
    • m101 2y ago
      My point was that the media is looking for whatever reason it can make up which correlates, rather than asking whether the problem lies with their own "team". It doesn't care about the legitimacy of the reason.
  • latexr 2y ago
    > Why isn't it about Kamala just being so bad, in Bezos's eyes, that she doesn't deserve an endorsement. Bad for whom? Bezos is a multibillionaire, his problems are not our problems. It’s detached from reality to think a guy that made his fortune exploiting workers and other businesses in any way understands or cares for society’s struggles.
    • m101 2y ago
      I fundamentally disagree with your comment on "exploiting workers." That's what Marx thought, and it's precisely where he went wrong.
• raindeer2 2y ago
  Funnily Bezos has probably made more for Harris by stopping the endorsement then if he let it go through. No one would have cared about the endorsement, now this story is everywhere..
• rasz 2y ago
  'Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.' ~Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny https://smalldeedsdone.com/2024/07/09/do-not-obey-in-advance-how-democrats-have-broken-the-first-rule/ https://smalldeedsdone.com/2024/07/09/do-not-obey-in-advance...
• euroderf 2y ago
  I guess there's no regulatory guidance here, on media ownership interfering with media op-ed operations ? Even when Bezos (probably) swore up and down he would never interfere ?
• mdp2021 2y ago
  From Jacob Heilbrunn on the National Interest: # The Capitulation of The Washington Post https://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/capitulation-washington-post-213393 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacob-heilbrunn/capitulati...
• superultra 2y ago
  If the Post endorsed Harris but then added an addendum that this was the last election they’d be endorsing, this would make sense and seem a lot more impartial to a now 40-year tradition. I went to return something to Amazon and though it was clearly their fault for sending the wrong item, the rep said “we’ll make a one time exception here” and I said fine whatever. Seems like there’s a Bezos precedent for this kind of “last time” approach lol
  • FrontierProject 2y ago
    To be fair they always say that. Everybody gets the "one time exception."
• HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  This isn't a normal election, or anything remotely close to it. It'd be lovely if we had TWO relatively normal candidates and could vote for them in our normal partisan ways. You may have noticed that basically everyone in Trump's first term cabinet has come out and called him things ranging from "moron" to "fascist" to a "danger to the country". This is not normal. It's extremely abnormal. It's a warning to the country. It's at extraordinary times like these when the country needs some leadership, from the media as well as those in power, to highlight the danger. Many senior republicans have stepped up and announced they are going to vote for Harris. It's a very poor look for a newspaper, faced with a once in a lifetime election like this, to effectively say "we're gonna sit this out out - we have no editorial opinion on who is better for the country". Very sad.
• cryptonector 2y ago
  Evidence that Bezos might have had good reasons to nix his paper's endorsement: the Nation withdrew its earlier endorsement of Haris: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-harris-counter-endorsement/ https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-harris-cou...
  • jwkpiano1 2y ago
    A piece written by the interns is absolutely not a withdrawal of the endorsement by the Nation. Please don’t mislead people.
• southernplaces7 2y ago
  Probably already mentioned in the comments below, but the subtext here is obvious. Bezos thinks Trump is very likely to win and he has killed this endorsement because it might screw his broad business interests in all kinds of ways under the administration of a vengeful Trump. The nature of Amazon makes it much more exposed to regulatory heat inside the U.S than would be the case for a more purely digital tech-driven firm like, say, Meta. Aside from the likely cynicism of the move, the cliquish criticism of Bezos reeks of moralizing hypocrisy. Is there some exact moral duty among major tech company founders to effusively endorse specifically progressive, liberal elite-endorsed democrat candidates, to show their own kumbaya credentials? Bullshit. Even the ones who vigorously support democrat politicians are no less self interested in doing so. It almost always boils down to money and favorable regulations, whether someone supports the donkey or the elephant.
  • giraffe_lady 2y ago
    It's not a novel observation but there's another conclusion you can draw from the same information: it's in bezos's best interest for trump to win and he wants him to.
• kyleblarson 2y ago
  The irony I see is that all of the "reporters" who resign(ed) will soon be pitching their Substacks on Twitter.
• ryankshaw 2y ago
  WaPo endorsing Harris would have changed exactly 0 minds. Everyone that would have read it already agrees with them. But it would have made them feel good about their existing world view. Them _not_ endorsing _will_ change minds. There are people that read Washington Post that would take that as a sign that not even their trusted left-leaning paper is 100% comfortable with the candidate they should have endorsed, so maybe there's something there they should have hesitancy about too.
• barfingclouds 2y ago
  Weird, because in Trump’s last presidency he was pretty anti Jeff Bezos. But I guess however they feel about each other, the assumed business tax benefits of a trump presidency make him want trump
• seydor 2y ago
  Bezos utilizing unorthodox reverse psychology techniques to delegitimize trump and bolster support for harris
• pyuser583 2y ago
  Lots of press are declining to endorse. This is a trend. It’s generally harmless for high-visibility elections. But these endorsements are both powerful and essential for lower-visibility elections.
• deleted 2y ago
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• Slava_Propanei 2y ago
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• Buttons840 2y ago
  My first thought is that it's sad that a billionaire owner can override the will and culture of the journalists that compose the paper. My second thought is that it's really bad that this could have been done in order to help Blue Origin get government contracts. Think about it, the actions of a news paper are being influenced by what's best for a aerospace company. How did this happen? It happened because more and more companies, across all industries, are owned by fewer and fewer people.
• Slava_Propanei 2y ago
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