In November 2020 PublicAffairs, in partnership with Harvard Business Review Press, published Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, with an introduction by Walter Isaacson. Our contract was with Bezos, personally.
Who is Bezos kidding? The Post is so obviously anti-Trump that killing a Harris endorsement isn’t going to fool Trump himself or anybody else into thinking his newspaper is suddenly objective or even-handed in its coverage. Bezos is entirely correct that the media is seen as grossly biased but the Post is Exhibit A for that bias. And since Bezos is highly intelligent I seriously doubt he thinks this will win him much relief from Trump. I think this was a serious effort to change how newspapers operate along the lines of Elon Musk’s efforts (whatever you think of them) to stop censorship at Twitter. The problem is that both men are seen as political partisans which weakens their credibility.
Are you really that clueless. What happened is quite simple. After the election of Trump in 2016, the WP veered very sharply to the left. The WP gave up its outstanding objective reporting for unhinged left-wing activism The WP actually published an article arguing that it is OK to hate men.
Outside the hermitically sealed woke bubble, few ascribe to the ultra-woke, far-left activism being pushed by the post. Trust in the WP, like most legacy media institutions cratered and ex-subscribers voted with their wallets. The Post lost $77 million in 2023 and will probably lose more in 2024. Even for Bezos, that is real money. The Post is a privately owned institution. Bezos has a constitutional right to lose as much money as he so chooses on this particular vanity project. But if he actually wants to make money, he will have regain the trust of those who do not subscribe to the views of the WP management and reporters and actually return the paper to objective journalism.
Sadly, this is likely impossible, and the WP will join other woke legacy papers on the trash heap of history.
Excellent, Peter. We've canceled our subscription (more a 'pause,' technically) but will keep watching as this whole thing evolves. The handful of great, ambitious newspapers is too vital for them to be reduced by one curious judgment. Alan Solomon, ex-(once-great)Tribune
An insightful comment. What is really at issue here may be the survival of the country more than that of the paper. Donald Trump may be nothing more than a front for powerful interests who see America as a resource to be plundered rather than a people to be governed. Trump was technically a real estate agent before turning into a reality TV personality. After the collapse of Communism, Putin and his collection of oligarchs stripped Russia of its wealth and laundered the money by buying expensive properties around the world. Trump became their agent-fixer supreme. He located and sold them the properties needed to convert their stolen rubles into fungible property and then into internationally exchangeable hard currency. When Trump became president, he naturally saw the position as an opportunity to sell off parts of the US government on a transactional basis. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel are all involved in industries that depend heavily on US government decisions. If they can get their man into the top executive slot, they will be able to operate unhindered by any regulation or concern over public welfare. Trump is more than happy to sell the country to the highest bidder. It's a transactional relationship. No wonder that he understands and admires Vladimir Putin. Putin got into the game at the beginning, and stripped Russia of its resources before anyone was aware of what he was doing. One of Trump's followers at the Madison Square Garden rally referred to Kamala Harris as the Antichrist. In fact, that is the role that Trump has been playing all along--the Antichrist is also known as the Great Deceiver, the figure who pretends to be humanity's savior but, in fact, drives humanity towards ultimate destruction. Trump probably won't live very long, but J.D.Vance will serve as a more manageable front for the whole operation once Trump retires or disappears. Whether the Washington Post survives or not is immaterial. Certainly, canceling one's subscription is foolish because of Bezos' timidity is counterproductive and foolish. The United States emerged as humanity's great experiment with the ideas emerging from the Age of Enlightenment. If our most intelligent and wisest citizens now allow the country to be sold off for junk by a mediocre con artist, something will indeed have been lost.
There is an old expression about publishers and their journalists, of which I am one who worked for both the Washinton Post newspaper and two of its television stations. Journalists think the paper is about news and information. The advertisements merely provide structure for the pages. Publishers KNOW advertisements are the business, and the news is the filler that completes the page. The advertising world has moved onto the Internet and all connected devices. The age of print is finished! Newspapers served multiple roles, many of which go unfulfilled in an electronic age. Core issues for print-based content are production and distribution costs. The Internet solves many aspects of that compared to just two decades ago. And of course, it creates its own set of problems for society at the same time.
Most elegantly put, as we would expect from you, Peter.....perhaps this might also capture Bezos' attention: 200,000 subscribers have unsubscribed (8%, hardly a trivial number of its total circ...imagine that for AmazonPrime!), and 3 of 9 members of the Post's 9-member editorial board have resigned since Bezos' ill-advised and certainly ill-timed effort to curry favor with Donald J. Trump....
Who is Bezos kidding? The Post is so obviously anti-Trump that killing a Harris endorsement isn’t going to fool Trump himself or anybody else into thinking his newspaper is suddenly objective or even-handed in its coverage. Bezos is entirely correct that the media is seen as grossly biased but the Post is Exhibit A for that bias. And since Bezos is highly intelligent I seriously doubt he thinks this will win him much relief from Trump. I think this was a serious effort to change how newspapers operate along the lines of Elon Musk’s efforts (whatever you think of them) to stop censorship at Twitter. The problem is that both men are seen as political partisans which weakens their credibility.
He'll unload it. To whom is the big question.
Are you really that clueless. What happened is quite simple. After the election of Trump in 2016, the WP veered very sharply to the left. The WP gave up its outstanding objective reporting for unhinged left-wing activism The WP actually published an article arguing that it is OK to hate men.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/2018/06/08/f1a3a8e0-6451-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html
Outside the hermitically sealed woke bubble, few ascribe to the ultra-woke, far-left activism being pushed by the post. Trust in the WP, like most legacy media institutions cratered and ex-subscribers voted with their wallets. The Post lost $77 million in 2023 and will probably lose more in 2024. Even for Bezos, that is real money. The Post is a privately owned institution. Bezos has a constitutional right to lose as much money as he so chooses on this particular vanity project. But if he actually wants to make money, he will have regain the trust of those who do not subscribe to the views of the WP management and reporters and actually return the paper to objective journalism.
Sadly, this is likely impossible, and the WP will join other woke legacy papers on the trash heap of history.
Republicans buy sneakers too. Michael Jordan
Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime.
Oh my. Please correct the misspelling of Katharine.
Fixed. Tks.
Excellent, Peter. We've canceled our subscription (more a 'pause,' technically) but will keep watching as this whole thing evolves. The handful of great, ambitious newspapers is too vital for them to be reduced by one curious judgment. Alan Solomon, ex-(once-great)Tribune
An insightful comment. What is really at issue here may be the survival of the country more than that of the paper. Donald Trump may be nothing more than a front for powerful interests who see America as a resource to be plundered rather than a people to be governed. Trump was technically a real estate agent before turning into a reality TV personality. After the collapse of Communism, Putin and his collection of oligarchs stripped Russia of its wealth and laundered the money by buying expensive properties around the world. Trump became their agent-fixer supreme. He located and sold them the properties needed to convert their stolen rubles into fungible property and then into internationally exchangeable hard currency. When Trump became president, he naturally saw the position as an opportunity to sell off parts of the US government on a transactional basis. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel are all involved in industries that depend heavily on US government decisions. If they can get their man into the top executive slot, they will be able to operate unhindered by any regulation or concern over public welfare. Trump is more than happy to sell the country to the highest bidder. It's a transactional relationship. No wonder that he understands and admires Vladimir Putin. Putin got into the game at the beginning, and stripped Russia of its resources before anyone was aware of what he was doing. One of Trump's followers at the Madison Square Garden rally referred to Kamala Harris as the Antichrist. In fact, that is the role that Trump has been playing all along--the Antichrist is also known as the Great Deceiver, the figure who pretends to be humanity's savior but, in fact, drives humanity towards ultimate destruction. Trump probably won't live very long, but J.D.Vance will serve as a more manageable front for the whole operation once Trump retires or disappears. Whether the Washington Post survives or not is immaterial. Certainly, canceling one's subscription is foolish because of Bezos' timidity is counterproductive and foolish. The United States emerged as humanity's great experiment with the ideas emerging from the Age of Enlightenment. If our most intelligent and wisest citizens now allow the country to be sold off for junk by a mediocre con artist, something will indeed have been lost.
There is an old expression about publishers and their journalists, of which I am one who worked for both the Washinton Post newspaper and two of its television stations. Journalists think the paper is about news and information. The advertisements merely provide structure for the pages. Publishers KNOW advertisements are the business, and the news is the filler that completes the page. The advertising world has moved onto the Internet and all connected devices. The age of print is finished! Newspapers served multiple roles, many of which go unfulfilled in an electronic age. Core issues for print-based content are production and distribution costs. The Internet solves many aspects of that compared to just two decades ago. And of course, it creates its own set of problems for society at the same time.
For the reasons you indicate at the end, Peter, I think this episode will end with the paper being sold.
As always, Dick…time will tell. No bets.
Most elegantly put, as we would expect from you, Peter.....perhaps this might also capture Bezos' attention: 200,000 subscribers have unsubscribed (8%, hardly a trivial number of its total circ...imagine that for AmazonPrime!), and 3 of 9 members of the Post's 9-member editorial board have resigned since Bezos' ill-advised and certainly ill-timed effort to curry favor with Donald J. Trump....
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/28/washington-post-loses-digital-subscriptions-harris-endorsement-punt.html