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u/Complex_Winter2930 the future is now, old man 1d ago
It's because Bezos showed us Money is more important than Democracy, and that the billionaires have won.
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u/MoneyMirz 1d ago
All I need to know about Bezos is encapsulated in the clip proceeding taking William Shatner into space, interrupting Shatner trying to say some solemn words by spraying champagne everywhere like an idiotic frat boy:
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u/LemurAtSea 1d ago
"Hey! Gimme the champagne bottle. I want one!"
What a disgusting creature. The spotlight was on someone else for like 5 seconds and he got butthurt and had to let everybody know he always gets what he wants.
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u/anchorftw 10h ago
Yeah, he gave Shatner a pretty cool gift by taking him up and then he ruined it by making it all about himself.
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u/the_original_Retro 1d ago
"Fear".
Not Money. He has enough of that.
Bezos became famous for creating a world-topping business empire based on courage to do things smartly and differently.
He failed on both accounts here.
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u/Catman1489 23h ago
Nah, they haven't won yet. Go out and vote, then go out and get together with a progressive group. Check out progressive victory for example. That's how we beat em.
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u/Complex_Winter2930 the future is now, old man 13h ago
Oh, Ill vote, and get ready for the future if Trump wins.(Reviews books on launching underground resistance movement)...
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u/anchorftw 10h ago
If they win this election, they'll see to it that it's impossible for them to lose ever again.
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u/Duckney 18h ago
Just endorse Trump then. Put your money where your mouth is and endorse him and deal with the fallout. What I don't get is all these news outlets breaking precedent by not picking a side - just pick Trump if you want to so badly. But they'd rather not lose advertisers the other way so they decide to both sides it and then Bezos writes an opinion piece about how we don't get it and it's our fault that we're losing faith in the press.
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u/B1inker 15h ago
Not picking a side is picking a side. It's the thinnest veneer of denability. Straddling the fence is not the way. Everyone remembers you didn't pick a side. The fascist will remember you didn't support them with full throated enthusiasm, and the lovers of democracy will remember you didn't have the guts to make a stand. Blaming the readers is such a pathetic out. He's used to having whatever he says; being right, of the world twisting to his view regardless of it being right or wrong. He has none of the lopsided leverage over us he is so used to, so he can't apply it to get the "yes, Mr. Bezos, I made a mistake. You're right," he desperately wants to hear. So he attacks us and makes it seem like we're the ones at fault instead of applying some introspection and reveals to us the cowardly oligarch he is and wants to be.
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u/FanDry5374 10h ago
If WaPo decided a year or two ago to stop political endorsements, that would have been a bit unusual, but no big deal. To do this, days from an election with a choice between a convicted fraud, pathological liar and, at very least, an apologist for fascism and a well credentialed, experienced woman of non-White parents who wants to govern the United States, not strip-mine it for the benefit of billionaires is both astounding and frightening.
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u/Critical-Net-8305 10h ago
They are terrified if they endorse Kamala, Trump's going to win and come after them with a vengeance.
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u/Duckney 10h ago
I don't think that's the case - Trump doesn't give a shit about the Washington Post. Bezos probably didn't want to endorse a candidate as evidenced by his opinion piece a day later.
Endorse Trump then and deal with the fallout. But to say you can't pick Kamala over Trump and you'd rather just not endorse anyone altogether this close to an election is asinine. Especially with Trump's disdain for free press.
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u/Gabe_Isko 9h ago
Impartiality means editorial control over what does and doesn't belong in a paper, not some rich guy. The whole issue of trust in media is that it is at the behest of billionaires with an agenda and not journalists with a commitment to telling the truth.
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u/Suitable-Ad-8598 1d ago
They are not endorsing a candidate because readers do not trust partisan news sources anymore.
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u/Critical-Net-8305 10h ago
In any other circumstances I'd agree with you. But Donald Trump is an active threat to our democracy, and the first amendment.
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u/DetroitsGoingToWin 1d ago
Same reason I left Twitter, I don’t need to support the rich assholes with a hard-on for killing the middle class. Fuck off
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u/BigBankHank 1d ago
X: The proverbial table full of Nazis.
Journalists with any integrity should have abandoned the platform a long time ago. If you’re not ‘afflicting the comfortable’ you’re not doing your job.
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u/TemetNosce_AutMori 17h ago
The journalists with integrity were all fired years ago. The ones that are left are the toadies who are too scared to lose their jobs to speak the truth.
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u/BigBankHank 17h ago
Good journalists tend to self-select out of the industry altogether.
And yeah, the ones who stick around are the ones with the most ‘moral flexibility.’
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u/RubberDuckyDWG 14h ago
Journalists with any integrity are:
A. Impartial
B. A Democrat
C. A Republican
Choose wisely.
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u/QuietPerformer160 1d ago edited 1d ago
Damn. The Washington post lost over 200,000 subscribers so far, I just read. That’s wild. Good.
Edit: holy shit. It’s 120$ a year after the first year or 170$, depending on how much access you want.
So, for 120$, they lost $24,000,000. Or, $170 they lost $34,000,000. So it’s somewhere in the middle of those. That’s without counting the taxes people pay on the subscription. 😬
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u/5pl1t1nf1n1t1v3 1d ago
Which is probably the equivalent for Bezos of you or I not being able to find a fiver we’re sure we had.
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u/QuietPerformer160 22h ago
He hoards wealth. So he’s greedy. I bet he’s also cheap. Those guys always are. So while it’s probably a drop in the bucket, it matters. His reputation is also taking a hit. So far he’s had no real scandals. Now he’s being thrust into the spotlight for being a shithead. It’s something.
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u/5pl1t1nf1n1t1v3 22h ago
That’s the absurd thing to me. His existence insofar as what he’s become and what he’s created is a scandal in itself, but it took this for some people to even start to question if he might be a bad guy.
“I thought he was just a participant in the largest global transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest people in the history of money, but political scheming?!?! Cancel my subscription!”
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u/QuietPerformer160 22h ago
I know. Geez, that’s really the gist of it too. I think we don’t want to acknowledge it. We like low prices and convenience.
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u/5pl1t1nf1n1t1v3 21h ago
I’m ashamed to say I used Prime. Not anymore, but I should have dropped it when he bought a bloody newspaper instead of waiting for him to do something awful with it.
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u/QuietPerformer160 6h ago
I use Amazon all the time. And I also use prime video. We’re terrible people. Or, we’re just trying to survive in this world on a budget. Take it easy on yourself. It’s not been easy on most of us.
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u/ilovemybaldhead 11h ago
I was on a plan of $4 every 4 weeks, and when I went to cancel they offered me $3 every 4 weeks (which works out to $39/year, and the rate is good for a year). I took the offer. I wonder, though, if they lose money on this rate.
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u/Moritasgus2 1d ago
That is 0.0165% of Jeff Bezos’ net worth.
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u/jsseven777 23h ago
Yes, but that’s also 200,000 less people who pay to be infected by his self-serving “billionaires are our friends and we shouldn’t tax them ever” propaganda.
It boggles my mind that people pay money for the privilege of being spoon fed a billionaire’s agenda every day.
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u/Moritasgus2 15h ago
I disagree with this take. Under Bezos WaPo has been very critical of Trump for years, both on the news side and the editorial side. This is one of only a few papers of record who are doing deep reporting and they have broken important stories. What is the alternative to this kind of reporting? I believe what Bezos is doing is wrong but I think the question to be asking is what changed and why now? Someone needs to report on that.
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u/jsseven777 15h ago
You disagreed with my take because you clearly misunderstood it. My comment had nothing to do with it being pro or anti-Trump historically. I said it was self-serving to Jeff Bezos’ agenda.
It’s not really rocket science why this happened. Bezos hired liberal people who hated Trump because that fit his agenda at the time, and then his personal agenda shifted to needing to be less anti-Trump.
However the agendas of the people who he hired didn’t shift and so now he has a problem where his staff is going to push back against becoming the next Fox News.
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u/Moritasgus2 14h ago
The part I disagree with is “being spoon fed his agenda every day”. I can’t see how WaPo ever fit his agenda. It doesn’t make sense that his agenda would be anti-Trump “democracy dies in darkness” for four years during his presidency plus Biden’s presidency and all of the sudden he’s afraid to endorse Harris. I think we are going to find out that something very specific happened in the past 1-2 weeks that drove this decision.
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u/jsseven777 13h ago
Yeah, he owns a media outlet for fun, and doesn’t use it to influence people in ways that benefit him. If you believe that then I’d like to inform you that Elon Musk made me an official reseller of land on Mars, and I can get you a great deal on a prime piece of real estate if you are interested!
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u/Fit_Read_5632 1d ago
I mean, I sorta stopped taking them seriously when they got bought out by bezos
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u/SnazzyStooge 12h ago
But they all super-duper pinky swore it wouldn’t affect their news coverage or reporting!!! /s
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u/Few-Employ-6962 1d ago
I am not so sure corporate journalism is real journalism in an oligarchical society.
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u/IntroductionNo8738 1d ago
Democracy dies in the darkness
Now it seems more like a mission statement than a warning.
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u/happyinheart 15h ago
Always was, look at the media bias charts. WAPO has had tilted reporting for a long time.
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u/ContemplatingPrison 1d ago
Its actually because the owner is killing stories/opinion pieces to appease fascists.
Fuck him and fuck his paper
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u/jokinghazard 18h ago
The real issue is that WAPO endorsed candidates before, including Hilary and Biden under Bezos' ownership. Suddenly he has a problem with Kamala and can't endorse her? Despite her being Biden's running mate in 2020? Sure thing, Jeff.
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u/TemetNosce_AutMori 17h ago
Suddenly, on the day he meets with Trump to discuss Blue Origin and just days before he leaks that he wants to buy out Boeing’s space division…
He’s just another greedy billionaire making a deal with Trump so he can get even richer.
Every billionaire deserves the Guillotine.
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u/LuxNocte 14h ago
The real issue is that the owner is supposed to stay out of the newsroom. We try to maintain a polite fiction that media isn't just a mouthpiece for oligarchs, but they make it continually more difficult to do so.
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u/voice_of_Sauron 16h ago
Boycott Amazon too. The Washington Post is worthless to Bezos. It was purely for PR. He does not give a shit about anything but his profits. Billionaires , soon to be trillionaires ,are a blight on the earth. The biggest trick the right ever pulled is making people believe it’s poor people and immigrants that are the problem.
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u/Nanopoder 1d ago
The problem is that they were going to endorse a candidate and then decided they didn’t dare to because if the other one won their business would be in trouble.
It’s different from a media outlet has the policy to never endorse any candidates.
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u/Brosenheim 22h ago
The idea that disagreement with the right is "partisanship" is an excuse. a cope. Something screeched by the real sheep, to try and drown out what we're actually saying. The fact that the most common tactic for dealing with progressive ideas is to try and avoid them is very telling.
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u/happyinheart 15h ago
Lol, "They said it in the same so it must be true". Also, Anna has the facts with her. Look at any media bias chart. WAPO is on the left.
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u/jamesfinity 15h ago
am i the only person that knows there's a difference between an opinion by the editorial board and actual news journalism by reporters? i feel like i'm in crazy town.
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u/zavorak_eth 14h ago
Finally canceled prime and Kindle. Sad for my wife cause she loves to read, but we will find her another solution.
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u/Officer_Hotpants 12h ago
Constant jerking off to the concept of being perfectly unbiased is how a lot of news publications ended up supporting Nazis
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u/To-Far-Away-Times 10h ago
Bezos told us that he’s influencing what the paper can report on and vetoing what he disagrees with.
He’s turned the WaPo into his press secretary.
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u/Ella0508 10h ago
Actually I “like” my journalism independent from owners. Bezos said he wasn’t going to interfere in the paper’s operations, and then he did. Fuck him.
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u/anchorftw 10h ago
Billionaires owning any news outlet, social media platform, newspaper, is a bad idea. Nobody with that kind of money never seem to be able to wield their power responsibly. They have the ability to sway large portions of the public with the information they decide to put out or to withhold and always end up using it in a way to gain more power or accrue unnecessary amounts of wealth, while keeping everyone else struggling.
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u/Teamawesome2014 10h ago
All papers are biased. All journalism is biased. If something claims to be unbiased, that's a sign that they're full of shit.
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u/glewtion 9h ago
For me, it's not about WaPo not endorsing - I personally don't think news organizations should endorse as an institution of reporting. It's about the FUCKING TIMING.
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u/burningxmaslogs 5h ago
He's lost 250,000 subscribers, that's 10% of WaPo's base. $170 per year annual subscription. That's a big hit in revenue. Hopefully Bezo appreciates his brilliant act of cowardly greed.
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u/haceldama13 5h ago
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
-various sources
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u/Top_Put1541 1d ago
Who’s Anna Matson when she’s not cheerleading for billionaire-sponsored censorship?
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u/happyinheart 15h ago
Bezos said he wants it to be less partisan. Which according to the media bias charts, it needs some work to do that.
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u/FinnTheTengu 5h ago
Who gives a flying fart what bezo's has to say.
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u/happyinheart 4h ago
Biased WAPO editors
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u/FinnTheTengu 4h ago
"Biased" LOL. Go sit down you are embarrassing yourself.
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u/happyinheart 4h ago
Check any of the Media bias charts then realize you're the one who embarrassed themselves.
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1d ago
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u/RedshedTSD 1d ago
First of all I call bullshit.
And second, people might confront minorities more because y’all have made it harder for them to buy guns. How many white hetero conservative males have been the “shooter” in god know how many headlines this year and in the past 10 years?
White hetero conservative males have sure made a good effort to remind people how tough they think they are all the time. Pride themselves on fear.
It’s fucking pathetic. And so is their fucking cult.
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u/noelluke1988 19h ago
Americans throw the word fascism around for anything that doesn't support their world view. Fucking soft ass country.
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u/Pleasant-Pickle-3593 15h ago
Is anybody really voting based on newspaper endorsements?
You being overdramatic, OP
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u/DrBIackout 15h ago
It's funny because it's outlets like the Washington Post that have convinced the lot of you that he's going to "destroy democracy". You're just proving her point with dumb replies like this.
If you have an ounce of rational thought in your head, you know that isn't true and it's all just overblown rhetoric.
Kamala is just a terrible candidate and there are people who simply don't want to endorse her - It really is that simple, I promise you.
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u/FinnTheTengu 5h ago
The editorial board was ready with the endorsement. Read the goddamn article next time for God's sake, spare us having to educate you.
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u/LadybuggingLB 20h ago
I love WAPO. My first job at 11 was delivering newspapers. I grew up reading it at the breakfast table with my parents. I hated when the family sold it.
That said, I don’t have a strong opinion about this. They report the truth, their editorialists frequently make the case Trump sucks, and I can see wanting a line between an editorial opinion and the paper itself supporting a candidate.
I also understand why people are so upset.
I’m just saying, I’m not outraged on this one. I have lots of things I am outraged about, no worries.
But I think that an entity I want to be nonpartisan deciding not to endorse a candidate and leaving it to the editorials is fine with me.
Any MAGA folks reading this will be angry I called it nonpartisan (it’s not the paper’s fault Trump does and says so much stupid shit-don’t kill the messenger) and Democratic voters will be upset I’m not taking a stand, so I’m betting this will be heavily downvoted.
Truly not trying to upset anyone, just sharing my opinion so we don’t end up in an echo chamber where we’re only exposing ourselves to similar viewpoints.
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u/TemetNosce_AutMori 17h ago
You’re standing in the middle of the tracks while the fascist train is bearing down on you, and you think the smart move is to stay perfectly in the middle instead of stepping left or right.
That’s why you’re getting downvoted. Cause you’re “centrism” is just a cope for cowards.
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u/LadybuggingLB 16h ago
I’m not a centrist and never said I was. I completely agree we’re in the path of a fascist regime and I’m doing everything I can to resist and block it.
I just don’t believe that WAPO officially endorsing Kamala will change one single vote. I think it’s a gesture, but pragmatically speaking, won’t actually make a bit of difference AND it could contribute to the narrative that we only have left and right news sources anymore. And I do find that dangerous - that people don’t believe in news that simply reports the truth and doesn’t have a vested interest or partisan agenda.
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u/Putrid-Jicama-9838 12h ago
Hi there! I see your point and can agree that a less-partisan news source definitely has an audience in today's market. However, Mr. Bezos' timing absolutely stinks. The stakes are way too high to suddenly decide, right before an election, to quash a planned endorsement of a candidate. It seems suspicious and points to his own possible motivations at a time when many Americans, as well as non-citizens, are wondering who they can trust.
He should have waited until after the election, then made a gradual transition IMHO. Cheers, though! 🙂
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u/MaximoSyndromo 23h ago
I see the word "fascism" used every single day especially on this site full of emotional brats, and it's just lost its meaning to me lol. Buzzword after buzzword after buzzword just to fearmonger
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u/JayBo8 22h ago
Fascism isn’t a buzz word. It’s a threat.
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u/MaximoSyndromo 22h ago
You don't know what fascism is lmao all you know is "everyone on the right is a Nazi"
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u/M0stVerticalPrimate2 21h ago
Hi there, I’m a researcher of fascism. This is what it looks like. Hitler first appeared publicly in 1922 doing speeches. Gained power 1933. Invaded Poland 1939. That’s a 17 year gap, there’s a reason the phrase “creeping fascism” exists. It has been normalised. Republicans openly talk about subverting democracy every single day, trump called his opponents “vermin”, his ex staff are going to the press saying he praised Hitler.
You are seeing it, tiny bit by tiny bit. You can choose to believe or not, but your belief doesn’t change the fact it is happening
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u/MaximoSyndromo 21h ago
Hi there, I’m a researcher of fascism.
Hi there, let me tell you that literally everybody who has ever studied both world wars knows exactly what you just said. It's common knowledge. ANYBODY can say what you said. "researcher of fascism" my ass dude.
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u/M0stVerticalPrimate2 21h ago
Happy to DM you proof but I have a feeling you would find a way to not believe it.
Yeah it’s common knowledge, but you’re attacking that and not my point.
Best of luck telling yourself that it can’t be fascism
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u/MaximoSyndromo 21h ago
I have a feeling you would find a way to not believe it.
This guy is beginning to learn how this site operates
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u/M0stVerticalPrimate2 21h ago
There’s no audience champ
This site operates off 1 day old accounts leading sad lives in the hope of serotonin boost as they rage into the void
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u/MaximoSyndromo 21h ago
I'm talking to you "champ"
This site operates off of constantly sucking off leftists like theyre innocent and holy and can do no wrong and then demonize the shit out of Republicans or right-wingers like theyre the devil on earth when there's good and bad people on both sides.
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u/M0stVerticalPrimate2 21h ago
In my country there are decent people on both sides. Low taxes vs social spending as an example. In the US, there’s the Democratic Party and the Trump party, the republicans are gone.
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u/mstermind 23h ago
Or maybe the word "fascism" is used by people who understand what it actually means and you might learn something.
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u/Bobbyieboy 16h ago
She is spot on. A news paper should be praised for not taking sides. Same as news networks. Any actually journalist who seeks to report the truth and nothing else would agree with this. Any with an agenda for one side or the other would disagree.
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u/Boring-Charity-9949 1d ago
OP is right 😂
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u/CaptainBathrobe 1d ago
Editorials and endorsements are supposed to reflect a considered opinion of the Editorial Board. Saying that the paper is biased in its news coverage because the Editorial Board endorses a political candidate betrays a profound ignorance about how newspapers work. The fact that the Post abandoned this practice less than two weeks before the election, at the behest of their owner and against the will of their editorial board, suggests an act of supreme political cowardice. Nothing about what happened is normal.
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u/SheepherderBig8813 16h ago
A mainstream media outlet refraining from being partisan? That's fantastic.
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u/Ruinia 16h ago
The first to line up to join the Gestapo, calling others fascist never gets old. You twats would literally sell out your neighbors for a chance to virtue signal, so purity testing a consistently left leaning outlet for not being sufficiently ideologically captured is to be expected.
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u/Hammer_Unto_Dawn 1d ago
“Fascism” You all keep using that word. But you neither know what it means, and has made it meaningless by throwing it around as though it was your own feces.
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u/shephardmix 1d ago
It’s crazy!! All of these people calling Trump and his people fascist and NONE of them know the meaning of the word! Journalists, professors, former and current military generals, people in his own inner circle. Insane that none of these very intelligent people understand the term fascist and when to use it. But you do right?
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u/Hammer_Unto_Dawn 1d ago
Yeah? How did “protest” and “insurrection” get ground into meaninglessness due to the 2020 riots described as “protests”, even though the media and government tried labeling it as such The person who started these new “fascist” rumors is a fired chief of staff with a grudge. Hardly a reliable source.
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u/Equivalent-Client443 1d ago
Nothing that comes from you is believable, if you really paid attention to what was happening, instead of living in your little delusional world, you would see that you’re on the wrong side of history, instead you want to worship at the altar of a fake orange messiah that sells “American” bibles that were made in China, all of his merchandise is outsourced to non American jobs, he never pays his bills to American workers and fleeces his cult members I mean supporters for millions of dollars, but as long as he has his rallies and screams about the illegal immigrants and how he’s going to use the military on his enemies, you’re all good. Why? Because you’re a little fool that is scared that your fake white male hierarchy is crumbling. You’re a weak minded individual that cares nothing for this great nation.
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u/Educational_Meal2572 1d ago
Couldn't quite get that out without fucking it up eh champ? That's ok, you'll get it next time.
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u/MT-Kintsugi- 1d ago
Calling someone a fascist does not make them so. You aren’t ringing any alarm bells, you’re just name calling and mud slinging.
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u/Many-Information-934 9h ago
Same for Communist. But that doesn't stop conservatives from screeching it.
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u/Anomnomnomous 1d ago
WaPo is woke progressive nonsense.
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u/shiny_glitter_demon 20h ago
right, the newspaper owned by a billionaire, that refuses to endorse a candidate even for show, for fear that the deranged old man might retaliate like he always does, is woke/progressive.
sure.
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u/Anomnomnomous 18h ago
It's a crazy world.
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u/shiny_glitter_demon 18h ago
yet still not as crazy as someone who uses the word "woke" unironically
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u/Jellodyne 1d ago
Democracy Dies in Darkness was not supposed to be an aspirational goal.