Bezos Flunks Basic Journalism
Billionaire Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos, had a chance to be a journalistic mench but he blew it when he killed the Post endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Perhaps Bezos counted on the chaotic and frenzied news cycles prior to Tuesday’s election to minimize coverage of what was universally seen as a cowardly act by those in the news business. The fallout was intense and emotional as many interpreted this silencing of the newspaper’s voice as ruthless appeasement in advance to avoid Trump’s vengeance if he wins.
More than any Presidential race in modern history this close election is seen in apocalyptic terms.
Pulitzer Prize winner and editorial board member David Hoffman wrote in his resignation “I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump. I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”
Another board member Molly Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”.
The former editor of the Post and well respected tough journalist, Marty Barron, weighed in with his strong condemnation.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its Casualty”.
Faced with the loss of 20,000 readers who cancelled their subscriptions, hard working journalists who quit in protest, the many news outlets that cried foul, Bezos wrote an ineffective excuse for his actions. He wrote that news outlets should avoid “bias” or “even the appearance of bias.”
But that argument has nothing to do with the editorial section where opinions by nature present a point of view as the “voice” of the newspaper. Every day news outlets write opinion editorials —from the conservative Wall Street Journal on one hand to the moderate New York Times on the other. If Bezos wanted to discuss bias in news coverage, that is one thing. But to hinge his ban of an editorial presidential endorsement on “bias” is ludicrous and specious.
That dog won’t hunt, as they say down south. Especially to a long time Bezos former advisor, who believes the current Trump-Elon Musk alliance likely motivated the “cowardly” Washington Post endorsement ban. (reported in a Fortune exclusive by Jason Del Rey)
The article says this Insider views the endorsement ban as a “classic” Bezos ploy to “protect his self interests by avoiding any unnecessary mistakes. “
A second set of circumstances seems to have prompted this Bezos comment, about himself . “As for the the, appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials.” “This was a prelude to Bezos excusing this curious circumstance. On the very day Bezos announced his quashing of the Harris endorsement, David Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin met with Trump. “
Bezos pleads ignorance. He says he knew nothing about the meeting beforehand and its timing, but that it had nothing to do with his decision to ban an endorsement of candidates.
“Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that night morning.”
Why quickly? Who scheduled it? If it wasn’t Limp then who was it? Trump?
Bezos doesn’t bother to tell us. Or reveal what was said and done in that meting.
Bezos wrote that there was no quid pro quo and the meeting had nothing to do with his endorsement ban.
Another Trump /Amazon incident occurred last summer after Trump announced that he was running again. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, placed a friendly call to Trump who had been an Amazon vengeful adversary when President.
And there is evidence of Trump’s continuing pressure in his Tony Soprano-style response to a let’s be friends phone call overture from Amazon CEO Andy Sassy after Trump announced this time.
A Washington Post article this week added this revelation. Trump suggested that Jassy write a big fat check to his campaign from Amazon.
“Trump told Jassy that he was going to win the election and that Amazon should help him because it would be in the company’s best interests.” That last line certainly sounds like a threat.
Jassy did not make the contribution, wrote the Post “But the call itself reflected signs of new engagement .”
PUBLISHERS PAST
Newspaper publishers have routinely paid homage to the First Amendment, but history is replete with dismal acts by them and the courts to curb freedom of speech and thought. As Jefferson said, “Freedom of the press … is … the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.” Generally a rich, conservative, and cautious species, publishers are often content to squelch the truth if it offends those who feed them—advertisers, corporate interests, friends in high places; or as the 20th century legendary muckraker I.F.Stone noted, a publisher was "a man who made a million bucks selling toilet paper and bought a newspaper as a tax loss." Rather quaint considering today’s multifaceted global billionaires.
But few publishers were ever so brave as the abolitionist publishers who were beaten by mobs and even murdered.
By the way Jefferson, furious at the attacks on him by opposition forces, lured a friendly publisher to set up shop in the nation’s capital with printing-contract patronage. Such blatant news management assured that political journalism was dominated by President Jefferson’s party press.
It is a safe bet to project that if Trump gets to be president, he will be keeping score and doing what he can just to settle up. Unfortunate court decisions in the past have been fatal for a genuine democracy, freeing up billionaires to spend whatever they want to on a candidate, hence Trump‘s pitch for money from Amazon.
A Trump presidency would signal the death of healthy dissent. If that happens it will be interesting to see how the Post covers the news.
Bezos hiding behind bias in my view was a ploy and nothing more.
And with Trump calling opponents “vermin” and “lunatic left” among the “enemy within” we need to examine what happened to the death of dissent and the hounding of innocent people during the McCarthy Era.
Trump, who shouts his autocratic message, will do what he can to settle his scores, real or imagined. Bezos caving in is a sorry state of affairs to be taken seriously .
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Myra MacPherson was a newspaper journalist for 40 years, 20 of them at the Washington Post. The comments regarding past publishers are from her award winning All “Governments Lie: : the Life and Times of Rebel journalist I. F. Stone.