More than 200,000 people have canceled their subscriptions to the Washington Post — about 8% of its base — after Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner and founder of Amazon, barred the editorial board from running a presidential endorsement, according to a report.
NPR, citing anonymous sources, cited the figure in a report and said the number of cancelations “continued to grow” on Monday afternoon. The controversy threatens to put a major dent in the Washington Post’s circulation of 2.5 million subscribers....
Two contributors to the Washington Post’s opinion pages — Michele Norris and Robert Kagan — severed tied with the paper in protest. In addition, 20 Post opinion columnists have co-signed a column blasting the decision to not endorse a presidential candidate as “an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love.”
On Friday, former Post editor Marty Baron called the paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” in a post on X. Baron wrote that “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
Former Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting brought down Richard Nixon, also bashed the decision on Friday, saying, “We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”...
There are a variety of deals and discounts, but I think the standard WaPo annual digital subscription is $100. So that's 20 mill out the window. Maybe a pittance to Bezos, but still.
Edit: just got this -
FLASH SALE
We never miss a story, but we have missed you.
Come back and save on your next year.
MONTHLY
50¢ every week for the first year
billed as $2 every 4 weeks
YEARLY
$120 $29 for the first year
Resubscribe
Last edited by O Really on Mon Oct 28, 2024 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
What I find amazing most of all is Bezos and Muskidoodle bowing down to trump because......they're skeered of him?
They're both alienating their biggest consumer markets. Do they somehow think trump will make them richer as they lose customers?
The editorials editor and an editorial writer quit at the LA Times. "The Washington Post editor at large Robert Kagan resigned in protest, too." viewtopic.php?p=203939#p203939
Idk about others, but this flap ain't going away soon.
What I find amazing most of all is Bezos and Muskidoodle bowing down to trump because......they're skeered of him?
They're both alienating their biggest consumer markets. Do they somehow think trump will make them richer as they lose customers?
The editorials editor and an editorial writer quit at the LA Times. "The Washington Post editor at large Robert Kagan resigned in protest, too." viewtopic.php?p=203939#p203939
Idk about others, but this flap ain't going away soon.
A state legislator friend liked colleagues who didn't support him in an election or legislative fight that he won because they then owed him. If Kamala wins Bezos and the LA Times will owe her big time. The payback may not be visible to us, but it will be there.
I actually applaud the Post for not making an endorsement. I have always felt that the news media should be objective and not display any bias. When you think about it, why should anyone care what a bunch of elitist editors think, anyway? Why should their opinions carry any weight at all?
Let every voter make his/her own decision.
These Post officials are mad because they don’t get to “officially” endorse Kamala over Trump. That reaction alone should tell you the level of their bias.
If Inhad my way, editorials penned by newspapers would be a thing of the past. I’m fine with opinion columnists and letters to the editor, however.
News media are expected to be objective in news reporting, but have always been able to express opinions, including biases, on the editorial page. And newspaper editorials have done a lot of good over the years to bring attention to things of interest or importance to their readers. But sure, a paper can decide it doesn't want to endorse any political candidates and had WaPo announced a couple of years ago that they are changing their policy and will no longer endorse candidates, probably few if anybody would have gotten torqued over it.
This is a different issue. The Washington Post, along with several others, has well over a hundred years of being an excellent and trustworthy source that has included some major investigations. The editorial board (who decides what gets printed as well as sometimes writing editorials) remained independent regardless of corporate ownership, and was never subject to interference from the profit side. When Bezos bought the Post, however, there was concern that he would turn it into his own publicity/propaganda rag like the Murdochs have done. So far, that didn't seem to be the case. Now it is.
I actually applaud the Post for not making an endorsement. I have always felt that the news media should be objective and not display any bias. When you think about it, why should anyone care what a bunch of elitist editors think, anyway? Why should their opinions carry any weight at all?
Let every voter make his/her own decision.
These Post officials are mad because they don’t get to “officially” endorse Kamala over Trump. That reaction alone should tell you the level of their bias.
If I had my way, editorials penned by newspapers would be a thing of the past. I’m fine with opinion columnists and letters to the editor, however.
What O Really says.
Canceling the Kamala endorsements is not "objective" and unbiased. It's a gift to TRE45QN. Plus these are not acts by "the Post" or the LA Times. Rather, these were unilateral de facto endorsements of Dolt .45 by 2 nonprofessional fat cats - far more "elitist" than the journalists. This is not how OUR fourth estate should operate.
I actually applaud the Post for not making an endorsement. I have always felt that the news media should be objective and not display any bias. When you think about it, why should anyone care what a bunch of elitist editors think, anyway? Why should their opinions carry any weight at all?
Let every voter make his/her own decision.
...
Outside of coin tosses, a voter's decision is based on something or on some knowledge/information from some source(s). Reading the opinion of a person or persons who follow politics closely and have access to huge amounts of information isn't unreasonable. But before you actually vote with them, however, you've got to know if their interests are the same as yours.
What do you think are the best sources of information for a voter to use to make his/her own decision?
If Inhad my way, editorials penned by newspapers would be a thing of the past. I’m fine with opinion columnists and letters to the editor, however.
Bit of a contradiction, opinion columnists are de facto employed by newspapers unless it's a guest columnist with the typical disclaimer of not necessarily endorsed or reflect the views of whatever the publication is.
That being said, it's important to make the distinction between the WAPO news division and the editorial board as with all periodical and a lot of tv stations, they are separate divisions and don't portend to be actual news.
In WNC our local station was owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, notoriously right. They'd do their two minute shtick at the end of the news and oftentimes the anchors would do an eye roll or wink signifying the difference.
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000000101010202020303010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.
Yeah the heavy hand of ownership, such as Sinclair, has long been present. It's just a shame to see it happen to what are essentially journalism icons like WaPo, NYT, and LA Times
Yeah the heavy hand of ownership, such as Sinclair, has long been present. It's just a shame to see it happen to what are essentially journalism icons like WaPo, NYT, and LA Times
Icons or not, these days Sinclair is reaching more people. If Jasmine had her way they wouldn't be able to editorialize.
Yeah the heavy hand of ownership, such as Sinclair, has long been present. It's just a shame to see it happen to what are essentially journalism icons like WaPo, NYT, and LA Times
NYT endorsed Kamala.
My consumption of the local Sinclair news is sporadic, but I'm not seeing their RW corporate editorials anymore. Of greater concern to me is what influence they exert over the local news and the ABC stories that are offered. Media consolidation is a rotten idea and never should have been allowed to progress so far.
Media consolidation is a rotten idea and never should have been allowed to progress so far.
Fershure, but I don't know exactly how anybody could stop it. Most of the smaller newspapers that have been swept up by Gannett, et. al., would have gone belly-up anyway and everybody would still end up reading USAToday except without any local supplement.
Media consolidation is a rotten idea and never should have been allowed to progress so far.
Fershure, but I don't know exactly how anybody could stop it. Most of the smaller newspapers that have been swept up by Gannett, et. al., would have gone belly-up anyway and everybody would still end up reading USAToday except without any local supplement.
Newspapers are a dying tool. Almost all articles in the Hooterville T-N are already USAToday. I was thinking more of Sinclair's tentacles reaching into so many markets. We used to have a mechanism to prevent that.
Speaking of USAToday, it also declined to endorse, but its history is different. Biden in 2020 was its first ever endorsement.