Dem
49
GOP
51
We have unhappy news: Jeff Bezos thinks you are an idiot. Don't feel too bad, though, because he thinks we are idiots, too. Facing a rebellion from the staff of The Washington Post, not to mention an exodus of subscribers, he published an op-ed yesterday explaining why he spiked the paper's endorsement of Kamala Harris. In short, it was about integrity:
We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. 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.
Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, "I'm going with Newspaper A's endorsement." None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one.
The thing is, there actually is a reasonable argument here. Newsrooms across the nation concern themselves, on a regular basis, with how much they should be "making" the news, whether in the form of endorsements, or high-profile confrontations at press conferences, or voting on sports awards, or whatever. However, in Bezos' case, he is arguing in bad faith, because he's responding to a bad faith argument, and he damn well knows it. The right-wingers who claim "bias" are really just saying "we don't like negative coverage of our candidate(s)." There is absolutely no chance they are going to be assuaged, certainly not by killing one single editorial.
Indeed, as far as "integrity" goes, Bezos did about as much damage on that front as is humanly possible. Now, with very good reason, it looks like the line between "business" and "editorial" (and there's no more important line in the newspaper business) does not exist at the Post, and the money men (well, money man) will dictate coverage decisions from here on out. After all, the money man just did that very thing. How can a reader have confidence in any future stories about Trump OR Harris, not to mention myriad other subjects? If the Post writes a story critical of Wal-Mart, is that on the level, or is it really just a press release for Amazon? If the Post has a negative report on SpaceX, is it a legit news story, or is it really just a press release for Blue Origin?
And indeed, the news broke yesterday that Donald Trump met with the leaders of Blue Origin the very same day that the op-ed was spiked. Sound like a quid pro quo to anyone? Bezos, it should be noted, addresses this in his op-ed:
I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn't know about the meeting beforehand.
Uh, huh. Given how dishonest the whole op-ed reads, we do not believe this for one second. There's also the fact that Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung strongly implied that there was a quid pro quo. It's not too often that we believe a member of the Trump campaign over someone who is not a member of the Trump campaign, but there are exceptions to every rule.
All of this said, we think Bezos did a very bad job on the cost-benefit analysis here. To start, has it EVER been the case that giving in to a bully makes them go away and leave you alone? The message that has been sent to Trump is that the campaign of threats and intimidation is working, and can be expected to continue working. If he becomes president again, what else will he force the Post to write, or not write?
Meanwhile, 200,000 subscribers have already canceled. That's about 8% of the total subscriber base of the paper (2.5 million), and the number will surely keep growing. There has also been a wave of resignations from staffers, along with contributors and op-ed writers who declared they will not be writing any more pieces for the newspaper. These writers might be replaceable, over time. But the 200,000 subscribers? That hurts, especially since nearly all of them were digital subscribers. That money comes straight out of the paper's bottom line (as opposed to losing print subscribers, which would at least be partially offset by reduced paper and delivery costs).
Despite all the blowback that The Post got (and that The Los Angeles Times got before that), other newspapers are jumping on board the no-endorsement train. Yesterday, USA Today announced that it, too, will forego an endorsement. Instead, they said that readers will have to make "informed decisions" on their own.
It's not going to be pretty if Trump regains the White House, if the mere possibility of recrimination is enough to cow three different newspapers, all of them owned by billion-dollar concerns. And even if Trump doesn't reclaim his old job, it's pretty clear that his techniques, aided by the right-wing mediasphere, are working. Do you really think the NEXT Republican nominee won't try to mimic Trump's approach? We're not optimistic. (Z)