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Billionaires are not journalists
It's not about presidential endorsements—it's about the very future of our field.
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“Our.”
It’s the word from Jeff Bezos’ op-ed published Monday evening on his newspaper’s website that continues to gnaw at me the most. In a sprawling and incoherent defense of his decision Friday to block The Washington Post editorial page from endorsing Kamala Harris for President, Bezos writes the following (emphasis my own):
“In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.”
One quick stat will disabuse anyone of the notion that Bezos and I are part of a shared reality: He’s worth more than $200 billion.
While Bezos has a support yacht for his superyacht, I sometimes feel guilty for getting a sandwich that’s too expensive; While Bezos runs an international corporation so grueling that some workers are forced to pee in water bottles and employs more than a million people, I once paid a friend $50 to copy edit a story for me. Bezos owns a space exploration company; I own a space heater. We are not the same.
And yet the entire conceit of Bezos’ column is, like those Jesus commercials, he gets us.
How do I know Bezos isn’t a journalist? The proof is in his piece.
He writes that the decision not to endorse a candidate is a “principled” one inspired by Eugene Meyer, publisher of the paper from 1933 to 1946. If Bezos had any editorial sense, he would know that favorably referencing the work of American journalists during WWII and the Holocaust—given the current comparisons between the Republican presidential candidate and the guy who did the Holocaust—conveys total ignorance to this national moment.
Bezos assures us that, despite reports of the CEO of his space company Blue Origin meeting with Donald Trump on Friday, that, “no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here.” Here he violates another sin of journalism: Don’t treat your readers like they’re stupid. He says he “sighed” when he heard about this unfortunate coincidence because he knew it would make him look guilty as hell. And to his credit, it absolutely does. But no matter how many times she shouts “no quid pro quo!” actions speak louder than words.
Bezos writes, “You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other.” As previously referenced, wealth and business interests are not something journalists can relate to. Yes, we all approach the work with our own set of biases, but “will this story tank my government contract?” is not one of them.
Bezos demeans “off-the-cuff podcasts” and “inaccurate social media posts,” and in doing so demonstrates his fundamental lack of understanding about the way modern journalism functions. Podcasts, social media and independent journalism are the lifeblood of our current media ecosystem, with more and more people laid off from large corporate outlets—like The Washington Post—turning to available alternatives to pay rent.
Just because a news source isn’t backed by a billionaire does not mean it lacks principles; and Bezos has shown us that having a billionaire owner does not guarantee them.
One point we can agree upon is that, as Bezos writes, the journalists at the Post work extremely hard, and “they deserve to be believed.” And I believe them.
I believe the 21 Post Opinion Columnists who signed a letter published Friday stating that Bezos’ decision not to endorse Harris “represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love.” I believe them when they write, “An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.” I believe the three Editorial Board members who have stepped down from the board in protest. And I believe all the staffers who are bravely posting about how profoundly fucked up this is.
Bezos is not alone in his unconscionable decision. Will Lewis, the shady exec he hired in June to serve as publisher, took ownership of the move as well. You might recall his hiring was the impetus for the exit of Sally Buzbee, a respected Executive Editor.
Also in the past week we learned that Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, interfered with a planned endorsement of Harris. Last Wednesday, Editorials Editor Mariel Garza resigned in protest, telling Columbia Journalism Review, “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
Soon-Shiong responded with an impossibly ill-considered tweet:
So many comments about the @latimes Editorial Board not providing a Presidential endorsement this year. Let me clarify how this decision came about.
The Editorial Board was provided the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong (@DrPatSoonShiong)
10:31 PM • Oct 23, 2024
In response to Soon-Shiong’s version of events, Garza told The New York Times: “What he outlines in that tweet is not an endorsement, or even an editorial.” Soon-Shiong, too, is no journalist. He’s not even journalism adjacent. He, like Bezos, is a self-interested wealth hoarder with no regard for the work we do, and a demonstrated lack of interest to learn. They may be the ones keeping these storied institutions financially afloat, but then can also pull the plug at any moment. They can’t be both executioner and savior.
And right now, Bezos is even failing at the money part. According to NPR’s David Folkenflik (who I interviewed recently for The Handbasket and has been all over this story), the Post has lost upwards of 200,000 subscribers since Bezos thwarted the endorsement. Masterful gambit, Jeff.
It’s possible that for many of these readers, the failure to endorse was the driving force behind their cancellation. But the overall outrage, from my perspective, was never about the endorsements—at least for journalists. It was and is about what billionaire interference in the editorial process says about the state of media: That it’s ultimately beholden to the wealthy. We’ve learned this lesson time and again as private equity firms have bought and destroyed media outlets with little thought, and even less remorse. They have no business in our business.
Perhaps this is hitting extra hard because we’ve long worried about the societal toll unchecked billionaire rule would have, and this is one of the first fully tangible manifestations. Dispiriting as it may be, we must keep calling it out. That is, as long as journalists are still allowed to publish.
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