On Monday, the Washington Post ran an editorial by its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, admitting that sane people no longer trust the mainstream media. The essay probably tried to address several different issues. First, the Washington Post's revenues are cratering. Last year, it burned through Bezos's cash like a drunken sailor in Olongapo. A second issue is tied to the first. Major newspapers are increasingly viewed as partisan outlets, mostly because they are. This limits the outlet's market to about a third of the adult US population because the other two-thirds don't trust it.
The press has done this to themselves. They've been throwing away credibility w/both hands for oh, decades. Most ppl are only noticing now b/c the handfuls have gotten so much bigger. If media members can't free themselves of their enthrallments, a nation can't survive. pic.twitter.com/QTZ6cCnHNm
— Elizabeth Scalia (@TheAnchoress) October 22, 2024
Indeed, outside of partisan nutbaggery, how do you explain something like this NY Times op-ed?
They just don’t get it. This is why legacy media is dead. @nytimes
— Paramount Tactical - Gary Melton (@paramounttactcl) October 27, 2024
Partisan hacks with zero credibility pretending to be news. pic.twitter.com/ZHfK7KtFkH
The truth of that came home to roost after the Washington Post, at Bezos's command, followed the Los Angeles Times's lead and refused to endorse a presidential candidate; see YUGE: WaPo Declares It Will Not Endorse a Presidential Candidate This Election.
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Requiem for a Rag: The LA Times Implodes Over the 'Non-Endorsement' of Harris – RedState
USA Not Today—Yet Another Major National Outlet Refuses to Endorse Kamala Harris – RedState
Not only was there a staff revolt, but the WaPo allegedly lost 200,000 subscribers because it refused to endorse Kamala. This seems to validate the accusation that the WaPo is a partisan rag, not a newspaper.
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My colleague Bob Hoge took a look at Bezos's essay; see Jeff Bezos Weighs in on WaPo Endorsement Drama: 'Our Profession Is Now the Least Trusted of All'.
The truth, Bezos said, is nobody believes journalists anymore. He wouldn't come right out and say that it's because most of them are DNC sycophants and are desperately biased for the Democrats, but it’s hard not to come away with that conclusion:
Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
As Bezos said, complaining is not a strategy. So what could he do to make a major step toward redeeming the WaPo's reputation and putting it back as the "nation's paper of record?" According to reports, Bezos has directed that more conservative voices be heard on its editorial pages.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wants more conservative opinion writers at paper: report https://t.co/FGXY75XOg9 pic.twitter.com/SFwC99pTsi
— New York Post (@nypost) October 28, 2024
But we all know how that works out. Jennifer Rubin started out as a conservative voice. David French is the conservative voice for the New York Times. A lone conservative can't survive in a seething maelstrom of leftist hate. They either become leftists, or they leave. Remember the saga of Bari Weiss, who was about as inoffensive a leftist as you would ever find? She was forced to resign from the New York Times after a character assassination campaign by her co-workers.
We know how the "hire conservatives" movie ends. The people hired either change sides and become obedient, servile house conservatives, or they quit. Unless Bezos appoints an ombudsman to monitor internal Slack conversations with the authority to discipline those conniving to force out colleagues who do not toe the Marxist line, nothing changes. Quite honestly, unless Bezos changes the corporate culture at the Washington Post from the hyper-partisan snakepit it is, there is no hope.
What could Bezos do to restore some faith in the paper? Give back the Pulitzer Prize it shared with the New York Times for pushing fake stories about Trump's ties to Russia; see Walter Duranty Is Alive and Well and Working at the Washington Post and New York Times. He could demand the resignations of everyone involved in the story, particularly those of the editors who guided the coverage. That would be a good faith offering that he is serious about restoring credibility. It would be a sign that there are consequences for peddling lies and that the truth has a greater value than the accolades of the Democrat party.
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