Politics

10176 readers

19 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Socialism

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

The Washington Post opinion editor approved a Harris endorsement. A week later, the paper’s publisher killed it. (www.cjr.org)

submitted 4 weeks ago by alyaza to c/politics

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] tardigrada 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Ian Bassin, a democracy expert, calls these moves “anticipatory obedience”: fear by owners that if Trump wins he could take vengeance on companies that cross him. They noted that the leadership at CNN and the Post changed after the Trump administration tried to block the takeover of CNN’s parent company and tried to deny a cloud computing contract for Amazon, Bezos’s company.

That's very telling and a stark reminder why decentralization in media and the entire economy is important.

Washington Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan stepped down in the meantime. As Semafor reports on the newspaper's recent editorial meeting:

[...] But there may be more: “people are shocked, furious, surprised,” said an editorial board member [referring to Jeff Bezos' non-endorsement decision], citing internal discussions around resignation. “If you don’t have the balls to own a newspaper, don’t.”

Addition:

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein Blast Washington Post's 'Surprising' Decision Not To Endorse

"Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”