The Washington Post’s Craven Capitulation to the Billionaire Class

It’s a new slogan that seems fitting for a divine yet benevolent brain trust. washington post: Democracy perishes in the darkness of Jeff Bezos’ wallet. The newspaper, which has long criticized its reputation as a principled enemy of paranoid and authoritarian Republican administrations, announced on Friday that it would not endorse a presidential candidate this time (or indeed ever again) despite being impeached twice. announced. , Donald Trump, with his criminal convictions, is making Richard Nixon look like a mere prankster in the realm of unbridled abuse of maximum executive power.

This newspaper, which still has the audacity to envision itself as the heroic guardian of democracy in the face of this country’s challenges, has turned to MAGA populist politics under the flimsiest pretexts imaginable. I turned over. Protecting “independent space” For voters who don’t want to know who they’re voting for, Editor-in-Chief Editor of the Editorial Page, David Shipley, spoke out against the paper’s staff during what NPR Media reporter David Folfenflick called a “tense meeting.” He is reported to have told them this. Never mind that Americans are already told who to vote for in an endless loop in every conceivable public forum, leaving their delicate sensibilities intact . Never mind that the whole idea of ​​the Op-Ed section is to gather voices to discuss what people should say and do. And never mind that in the battle over how or whether America’s formal democracy can continue, there is no such thing as an impartial “independent space.” What Shipley actually meant was, “My company’s payroll leaders want to avoid jeopardizing lucrative federal contracts by getting carried away by Donald Trump’s tax cuts.” , the false rhetoric of non-committal journalistic objectivity is much more appropriate for newsroom meetings. Ask reporters to give management their opinions.

Shipley had reportedly already drafted a letter of support for Harris. every postown reportrejected by. post Amazon owner and retail raider, multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos. During the first Trump administration, the then-president threatened to withhold major tax cuts and postal subsidies to the United States in retaliation. post‘s critical coverage of Trump. When the editorial board considered the 2020 endorsements, Bezos endorsed Joe Biden’s choice. This time, the paper’s owners are hedging against economic sanctions during President Trump’s second term, but not on the resolution of several pending antitrust cases against them that are unlikely to break their way in a Harris administration. Needless to say. and Like his fellow billionairesThe Amazon king is clearly warming to the prospect of gaining more confidence in his coffers thanks to President Trump’s pledge to continue providing lavish contributions to our nation’s economic oligarchy.

It is worth noting that the same scenario Los Angeles TimesThere, billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the paper’s plans to endorse Harris. In addition to being a standard-stock plutocrat with pharmaceutical assets who would surely thrive under a more lenient FDA appointed by President Trump, Soon-Shiong is a billionaire who is committed to Trump’s re-election. He is also a longtime friend of billionaire Elon Musk. (A wonderful irony, actually. post It ran a front-page article about the position of Musk’s satellite company, Starlink. Raise billions more in government donations It was the very day that the paper’s owners announced their enthusiastic capitulation to Mr. Musk’s would-be patron during President Trump’s second term).

What’s the difference between being embarrassed? LA Times The problem is that the editor of the paper’s editorial page, Marial Garza, recognized the real journalistic and political risks of having the paper’s voice suppressed at the discretion of a billionaire. Garza: “I’m resigning because I want to make it clear that silence is not an issue for us.” said Columbia Journalism Review Editor Sewell Chan:

Dangerous times require honest people to rise up. This is how I stand up. …This is the point where you speak your conscience no matter what. And our support is the natural next step after a series of editorials we’ve written about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, how unfit to be president, and about his threats to jail his opponents. I decided to do it. We have argued in editorial after editorial that he should not be re-elected.

There are some cruel comments about David Shipley, such as: post Employee: “The old story about Shipley is that he got the job because he knew how to deal with rich people.” Jacob Heilbrunn, former Shipley colleague. new republicAt the time, he was “serious and traditionally liberal,” he agrees, but “now he seems to have morphed into a completely empty figure.”

Indeed, Mr. Shipley said he “owned” the postIt was a despicable decision made in that heated staff meeting, but the official rationale behind it was Bezos’ hand-picked publisher, Will Lewis, a former Murdoch vassal still deeply entrenched in the aftermath of the British phone-hacking scandal. Published under the signature of

In an arrogant and insensitive editorial, Lewis dismissed the paper’s recent history of supporting presidents, citing the paper’s failure to endorse the 1960 presidential election. This is primarily a statement of putative journalistic principles that almost succeeds in being weasel-like and pompous. “We have stated, and will continue to say, as reasonably and frankly as we know what we believe on the new issues of the campaign,” the 1960 editorial read in part. are. “We have endeavored to reach as fair an opinion as possible, based on the principle of independence but without affiliation to any political party or candidate.” Translation: We must not entertain candor merely as an expedient rhetorical posturing, but must avoid clear moral implications for our own journalistic work.

That is also the point of Lewis’s own absurd argument. He dismissed the idea that his kissing pose doubled as “tacit support for one candidate or condemnation of another,” saying it was in fact “consistent with American values.” Lewis insists. post “We have always stood for character and courage in service to American ethics, reverence for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects, and what we look for in our leaders. “if post While we certainly hold these values ​​dear, we do not believe in the number of convicted lawbreakers, bigots, sexual assaulters, abusers of executive power, and self-proclaimed political vendettas, including former ministers themselves. It is objectively impossible to achieve alignment on values ​​by absenting ourselves from elections that could restore maximum power to our agents. Considered a fascist. readers of post‘s editorial page would have been better with completely blank space, or some horoscope or wordplay instead of Lewis’s self-congratulatory bilge.

Still patient post Readers will not be too surprised by Lewis’s foolish and self-cancelling reasoning. This was also the newspaper that published damning news about Martha Ann Alito, the wife of Supreme Court spokesperson Martha Ann Alito, for three years. President Trump’s maximum executive power And they gleefully overthrew women’s rights to bodily autonomy, hoisting upside-down flags outside the couple’s home to show solidarity with the January 6 coup attempt. And according to NPR’s Volfenflik, Lewis has hinted at the possibility of an exclusive interview. with him in exchange for the writer’s promise. Burying the progress of the phone hacking incident in his report.

This is a world far removed from the lofty standards of character and decency that Lewis professes to uphold in his morally indefensible stance of non-alignment at a moment of democratic crisis. But that’s what you get when you put only people at the top of your masthead who know how to get along with rich men.