Dem
47
GOP
53
When Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post personally, blocked a Post endorsement of Kamala Harris that the staff had already written, he got a bit of bad press, along with excuses how it was understandable that someone in his position didn't want to anger a possible president. Some people thought this was a one-off decision, and now that the election is over, he'd go back to selling stuff on Amazon and sending rockets into space.
Think again. The Post's Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist, Ann Telnaes, drew a cartoon depicting Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman bringing bags of money as offerings to a giant statue of Donald Trump. In addition, Mickey Mouse lay on the ground prostrated before the statue. All fine until editorial page editor David Shipley ordered the cartoon killed. It is not known (yet) if this was "anticipatory obedience" by Shipley or a direct order from Bezos. Either way, it is a not a good sign for independent journalism. Telnaes responded by resigning from the paper.
All autocrats know that one of the first things they have to do is silence the media, so that they can break all the laws they want and not have anyone know about it. When media outlets kowtow in advance, without actually being forced to, it makes the autocrat's life even easier.
After Bezos' decision to kill the Harris endorsement came out, the Post lost 300,000 angry subscribers. Whether that was a smart move is questionable. Bezos bought the Post for $250 million and put untold millions into it to bring it up to speed in a digital world, basically as an act of charity. Sure he can run ads in the Post now, but he can also run ads in the Times by just paying for them. Owning the Post really doesn't help Amazon or Blue Origin very much. This is why he bought it with his own money, not Amazon's—so he wouldn't have to defend his purchase to a board of directors as a good business decision for the company.
There are only four true national newspapers in the U.S.: The Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Reducing that to three players really doesn't do much for independent investigative journalism, and there is probably going to be a big need for that in the coming 4 years.
If Bezos wants to get off the hook going forward, he could create a foundation and give all his shares in the Post to the foundation. If he threw in a few hundred million as a cushion if times get rough, that would be nice and it wouldn't force him to eat only mac and cheese for a year. (V)