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Is Jeff Bezos killing The Washington Post on purpose or by accident?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- VivaTechnics 1y agoBy accident
- bediger4000 1y agoAgreed. He seems to think that people want to pay to be lectured about "personal freedom and liberty", and should take election advice from him, an oligarch.
- vFunct 1y agoYep. He has no idea what he's doing in media, or much else really (outside of AWS)
- dotcoma 1y agoHere is the link. Sorry for the mess. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washington-post-is-dying-jeff-bezos-will-lewis https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washington-post-is-dying-je...
- PaulHoule 1y agoThe "why" is pretty obvious. Bezos is intimidated by Trump. Under Trump 1 he changed the paper's masthead to "Democracy Dies in Darkness", like out of Batman. If you look at Russia, you see being an oligarch is particularly dangerous in an authoritarian society. You fall out of a window. You can't get permits for anything, your contracts get canceled. Some average rando can be part of the #resistance and not face consequences because nobody cares but if you are that visible you're vulnerable.
- aeternum 1y agoHe's more likely intimidated or at least discouraged by the party that declares they want to eliminate billionaires and capitalists.
- queenkjuul 1y agoWhich party is that?
- wkat4242 1y agoYeah I don't know any US party that says that lol. I don't think the Worker's Party of North Korea is very relevant to Bezos.
- gaws 1y ago> Bezos is intimidated by Trump. Bezos doesn't want all the space-related contracts to go to Elon and SpaceX.
- scoreandmore 1y agoYes.
- jeroenvlek 1y agoExactly.
- skybrian 1y agoI don't read the opinion section because you can get opinions anywhere and there are better blogs on Substack. The news reporting in the Washington Post seems as good as ever, as far as I can tell.
- cyanydeez 1y agoThe absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. To your context, it simply means you havent seen bias in the facts, but dont evaluate the completeness thereof.
- togetheragainor 1y agoThat’s very dismissive of the person you’re replying to.
- cyanydeez 1y agoSure, its an opinion with no facts about fact based assessment. Assuming this person is an unbiased observer and a well prescient one would be a mistake.
- bigbadfeline 1y agoPretending that facts cannot be manipulated is fundamental to propaganda, regardless of color. A big discussion of facts, experts and opinions is a way to escape addressing the ubiquitous propaganda problem.
- cyanydeez 1y agoNot the point. Which facts you report is a bias. One can be completely factual yet only publish limited info. This specifically is what wikileaks did in 2016 against the DNC. So unless you scour the internet for each topic, the full bias isnt obvious.
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
- kelseyfrog 1y agoPurchasing The Washington Post is a Day-Two move. Destined to lose.
- thepryz 1y agoEverything Bezos, Jassy and Amazon have been doing in the last ~5 years has been Day 2.Despite this, I think the question to ask is what was the real motivation for Jeff being the Post and what does success look like in that context. If the goal was to have more control over the narrative in this country and influence news reporting and public opinion in support of Jeff's ambitions, I think there's an argument to be made that he's accomplishing that as we speak.
- alephnerd 1y ago> Despite this, I think the question to ask is what was the real motivation for Jeff being the Post and what does success look like in that context. My hunch is it was due to Amazon's attempt to win a majority of the work in the JEDI tender. WashPo was bought during the height of the JEDI tender, along with Bezos's shift in domicile to Washington DC, Amazon HQ2, and Amazon's opening of the Crystal City and expansion of the Reston city campus all happened during that tender.
- SilverElfin 1y agoDay 2?
- roxolotl 1y agoBezos likes to describe Amazon as a “Day 1 Company” where you should approach every day like it’s your first day. “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to-shareholders https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/2016-letter-to...
- wkat4242 1y ago
- Animats 1y agoThe second Opinion unit, for outside submissions, is the Amazon reseller concept applied to news. It's why you can't buy anything important on Amazon any more. There are very few American newspapers left that have actual reporters in the field. The New York Times and the Washington Post are almost the only ones left. The result is that most stories begin from some press release. Look at the Washington Post right now. - "Trump, European Union reach trade deal with 15% tariffs" - from a press release. - "Israel to let more aid trucks into Gaza, under pressure over hunger crisis Israel said..." - press release - "Denied federal flood relief, a Maryland town is left on its own" - actual reporter coverage of regional news. - "Trump’s imaginary numbers, from $1.99 gas to 1,500 percent price cuts" - desk work, rehash of existing info. For most other newspapers, it's even worse. Few if any boots on the ground. "News is what someone doesn't want published. All else is publicity"
- sweeter 1y agoAll of these institutions are cooked.
- skybrian 1y agoOne difference between actual journalists and people who just post their opinions on the Internet is that journalists will make phone calls. Even when they don’t talk to people in person, that’s still valuable.
- PaulHoule 1y agoBari Weiss and Paul Krugman wouldn't agree on almost anything but they agree it's a better life to be writing for Substack than for the NYT. I enjoy reading Krugman so much now because he seems to be having so much fun now that he doesn't have the weight of the New York Times editors on him.
- skybrian 1y agoWhich articles would you recommend? I used to like his writing way back when he wrote for Slate.
- dadjoker 1y ago[dead]
- dimal 1y agoWeird that it doesn’t mention Trump. He and Bezos were at odds until Bezos gave him $1M for the inauguration and decided to neuter the Post’s opinion section. Then all threats of antitrust against Amazon magically went away. Bezos probably had to trash the Post to save Amazon. The loss is a drop in the bucket to him.
- dotcoma 1y agoAgree. But even completely losing Amazon — which would have never happened anyway — would have been a drop in the bucket at this point. Funny how you grow to become the richest or second-richest man in the world, only to kiss ass to a bully.
- jalapenos 1y agoHe knows the bully only gets to bully for a fixed term - after that he keeps what he has
- ethbr1 1y agoThat was definitely Zuck’s calculus as well.
- diddid 1y agoRich people have been paying off politicians forever, Trump isn’t the first, and he won’t be the last. Back the winner until the winner is the loser, then back the new winner, repeat. AKA the king is dead long live the king!
- dotcoma 1y agoTrue, but what is surprising to me is that not even Bezos’ kind of wealth will get him off the hook.
- bigfatkitten 1y agoIt could, but it in the circumstances it would be more expensive than bending the knee for a couple of years.
- rs186 1y ago> Over the last year the Post has been involved in almost monthly car wrecks I mean, unless the subscription number is way down or revenue has dropped significantly (which the article does not seem to mention), none of this matters, which is exactly what Bezos wants.
- iudqnolq 1y agoSo far each big, unpopular decision by Bezos has led to significant cancellations of paid subscriptions. Since it's happened more than once I don't think it's safe to assume the remaining subscribers are happy either. Bezos cancels planned endorsement of Harris: 300,000 paid subscribers cancel in period up to election. (400,000 new paid subscribers over the period, but they offered significant promotional discounts) Bezos tweets change to opinion policy: 75,000 paid subscribers cancel within four days With in the order of 2.5 million paid subscribers before all this started that's significant losses. Edit: Source is https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5312819/washington-post-bezos-subscriptions-cancellations https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5312819/washington-post...
- nsksl 1y agoIt’s surprising to me that in America newspapers are expected to publicly endorse a candidate. Not even trying to pretend to be neutral.
- j_timberlake 1y agoTitle: "The Washington Post is dying." Then the post is about a bunch of enshittification things instead. I'm sure it will die right after Bitcoin and Google Search and Adam Sandler movies.
- pseudocomposer 1y agoThis whole article led me to believe that a lot of people who work in big-corp news orgs don’t really understand what the rest of our lives are like in many ways. Be it the Times, Post, Fox News, or CNN, they think they are the centers of the universe. They think they themselves are critically important, not people being able to access accurate news. Over the last century or so, our smaller local media orgs have been eaten up by massive corporations. I don’t think that’s been particularly good for us, nor do I think people who’ve learned to thrive in these sorts of organizations really see that what’s happening now is just a more overt version of what’s happened over the last century or so. As for solutions to all this? I think these folks, the ones who really care, need to start leaving and forming their own independent, smaller news orgs. And if it’s not affordable for them to do so in cities like LA or NYC (hint: those places aren’t affordable for anyone), they need to do this in other parts of the country. (Really, this applies to everyone in every industry: if you don’t like what big corporations and evermore shareholder-driven economies are doing, go work for smaller companies that don’t have shareholders.)
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThe anchor desk "journalism" Beltway media corporate slaves (who don't realize they are slaves) exist on the delusion that their point of view is every point of view. They don't get out into the real world™ much. They're there to collect a paycheck, repeat the soundbites and read the teleprompter, and not offend their corporate/political masters lest they lose access and/or patronage. Ask Chris Hedges, the late Phil Donahue, or anyone else fired for daring to question the "patriotic" march to a largely pointless war.
- ethbr1 1y agoThis is a casual and lazy take. In many ways, beltway media is the most informed, at least with regards to the government picture of things — after all, the job is talking (informally and formally) to key stakeholders (and their underlings). That there are forces that try to shape this narrative, and consequences for those who fight it without their own power base, should be so self-evident it’s not even worth mentioning. The alternative to “anchor desk journalism beltway media” isn’t less controlled media, but even more obfuscated control. For all the faults of the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc., at least they have their own power base. Decentralized smaller media holding powerful entities to account hasn’t shown us that it works better — just that individuals can be bought much more cheaply (and invisibly) than newsrooms. Which in essence is the post’s entire point: media which survives genAi needs to differentiate its product. It can’t do that on (a) cost of production or (b) diversity of content. The only remaining options are (c) trust, powered by (d) the type of reporting it takes corporate funding and long-term journalist relationships and investigations to generate.