Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell; The Guardian, February 26, 2025

 Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian ; Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell

"Owners and publishers of news organizations often exert their will on opinion sections. It would be naive to think otherwise.

But a draconian announcement this week by Jeff Bezos, the Washington Postowner, goes far beyond the norm.

The billionaire declared that only opinions that support “personal liberties” and “free markets” will be welcome in the opinion pages of the Post.

“Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” he added.

The paper’s top opinion editor, David Shipley, couldn’t get on board with those restrictions. He immediately – and appropriately – resigned.

Especially in the light of the billionaire’s other blatant efforts to cozy up to Donald Trump, Bezos’s move is more than a gut punch; it’s more like a death knell for the once-great news organization he bought in 2013...

What is clear is that Bezos no longer wants to own an independent news organization. He wants a megaphone and a political tool that will benefit his own commercial interests.

It’s appalling. And, if you care about the role of the press in America’s democracy, it’s tragic.

“What Bezos is doing today runs counter to what he said, and actually practiced, during my tenure at the Post,” Martin Baron, the paper’s executive editor until 2021 and the author of the 2023 memoir Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post, told me in an email Wednesday.

“I have always been grateful for how he stood up for the Post and an independent press against Trump’s constant threats to his business interest,” Baron said. “Now, I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted.”...

This outrageous move will enrage them. I foresee a mass subscriber defection from an outlet already deep in red ink; that must be something businessman Bezos is willing to live with.

He must also be willing to live with hypocrisy.

“Bezos argues for personal liberties. But his news organization now will forbid views other than his own in its opinion section,” Baron pointed out, recalling that it was only weeks ago when the Post described itself in an internal mission statement as intended for “all of America”.

“Now,” Baron noted, “its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.”

It’s all about getting on board with Trump, to whose inauguration Bezos – through Amazon, the company he co-founded – contributed a million dollars. That allowed him a prime seat, along with others of his oligarchical ilk."

Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave; The Washington Post, February 26, 2025

 Washington Post staff , The Washington Post; Post owner Bezos announces shift in opinions section; Shipley to leave

"What readers are saying

The comments express strong disapproval of The Washington Post's new focus on "personal liberties and free markets" in its opinion section. Many readers perceive this shift as a move towards right-wing ideology and a departure from the paper's tradition of diverse and critical opinion pieces. There is a widespread sentiment that this change undermines journalistic integrity and stifles free speech, leading numerous subscribers to cancel their subscriptions in protest. Show less

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments."

Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.; The Ink, February 26, 2025

The Ink; Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.

[Kip Currier: Nail by nail by nail by nail, the three richest persons on the planet -- Elon Musk (Twitter/X), Jeff Bezos (Amazon/Washington Post), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/Threads) -- are erecting barriers to information and solidifying control of their versions of information. 

Note what Bezos, in part, wrote today: 

"We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others."

Point 1: Bezos's prior conduct tells us that he will decide how the two pillars of "personal liberties" and "free markets" are defined. That's censorship of ideas and free expression.

Point 2: Bezos will determine the parameters of "viewpoints opposing those pillars". That's also censorship of free speech.

Point 3: Bezos downplays the time-honored tradition of U.S. newspapers providing "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views" by stating that "Today, the internet does that job." This is an abject abandonment of the historical role of one of the nation's foremost papers of record; indeed, the very newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon. Bezos knows, too, that the internet is rife with misinformation and disinformation. A chief reason that readers seek out creditable, trusted news providers like The Washington Post is the expectation of fact-checking and responsible curation of opinions and facts. Bezos's statement amounts to disingenuous dissembling and the ceding of responsibility to the Internet and social media, which he well knows are highly flawed information ecosystems.

Point 4: Bezos states later that "freedom is ethical". But freedom always comes with ethics-grounded responsibilities. Nowhere in Bezos's statement does he talk about ethical responsibilities to truthfulness, free speech, accountability, transparency, the public/common good, constitutional checks and balances, or the rule of law, all of which are integral to informed citizenries and functioning democracies.

Bezos's actions and viewpoints are antithetical to free and independent presses like The Washington Post, as well as to the core principles of one of the world's oldest democracies.]

[Excerpt]

"Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, just sent out this email of total submission.

Bezos appears to have misread Timothy Snyder’s advice “Do not obey in advance” as “Obey in advance,” missing a couple words."

Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump; Associated Press (AP) via Washington Post, January 4, 2025

 Todd Richmond | AP via Washington Post; Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

[Kip Currier: Note that this story posted at 8:08 PM EST January 4, 2025 on the Washington Post website is written by an Associated Press (AP) reporter, not a Washington Post reporter. I have not yet located an article or OpEd piece written by a Washington Post staff person that addresses the Ann Telnaes editorial cartoon controversy, other than the Substack article by Ann Telnaes explaining her resignation.

• When and how will the Washington Post cover this story, and even more importantly, the implications for free presses, access to information, free expression, and democracy?
• Where are the Washington Post OpEd pieces about these issues by internal commentators like Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, Eric Wemple, etc.?
• Will there be no coverage by the newspaper itself that killed Ann Telnaes' draft cartoon?

The Washington Post's tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is fast becoming an ironic commentary on its own ethical lapses in timely and fulsome reporting, transparency, accountability, and journalistic integrity.]

[Excerpt]

"A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations."

A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed; NPR, January 4, 2025

David Folkenflik, NPR; A Pulitzer winner quits 'Washington Post' after a cartoon on Bezos is killed

[Kip Currier: Every day, U.S. oligarchs like Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong feel more emboldened to cravenly censor criticism of themselves and impede freedom of expression and access to information.

Thank you, Ann Telnaes, for speaking truth to power with your satirical artistry and standing up for the importance of free and independent presses with your principled resignation decision. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist underscored in explaining her resignation, "Democracy can't function without a free press".

The evidence is now even more clear than one year or a decade ago: Consolidation of ownership of print journalism and broadcast media by a few billionaires and corporate conglomerates chills the ability to dissent and provide access to diverse perspectives. 

The diagnosis and ramifications are also clear: Having a handful of oligarchs control America's newspapers is antithetical to well-informed citizenries and healthy democracies. (See here for a prescient 2017 article by veteran journalist and free speech/free press advocate Bill Moyers.)

Potential remedies? It's absolutely imperative that free speech-supporting Americans develop and nurture alternative ways to promote access to information and freedom of expression, as is increasingly being done on Substack accounts (see examples here, and here, and here) and via podcasts.

In the longer term, collaborative trusts (see here, for example) that can purchase newspapers and share ownership among more than one individual offer some potential ways to challenge oligarch newspaper monopolies.]

[Excerpt]

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post has resigned after its editorial page editor rejected a cartoon she created to mock media and tech titans abasing themselves before President-elect Donald Trump.

Among the corporate chiefs depicted by Ann Telnaes was Amazon founder and Post owner Jeff Bezos. The episode follows Bezos' decision in October to block publication of a planned endorsement of Vice President Harris over Trump in the waning days of last year's presidential elections.

The inspiration for Telnaes' latest proposed cartoon was the trek by top tech chief executives including Bezos to Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as the seven-figure contributions several promised to make toward his inauguration. She submitted a sketch before Christmas. It was never published."

Is Amazon Working Backwards?; New York Times Bits Blog, 12/24/09

Nick Bilton; New York Times Bits Blog; Is Amazon Working Backwards?:

"Newsweek’s current issue features some impressive Q&As with people in business and politics “who impact the big stories of the day”.

In the technology portion, Newsweek interviews Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, in order to explore some of the thinking behind Amazon’s business strategy as it moved from online bookseller to selling cloud computing services and the Kindle electronic book reader.

Mr. Bezos always delivers an interesting interview as he’s forced to straddle a very careful line between print and digital: promoting their new technologies and customers, including Kindle readers, without disregarding a much larger customer base of print book buyers. In past interviews, Mr. Bezos has tried to convince people to buy his digital products by comparing print books to outmoded forms of transportation. He told participants at last year’s D:All Things Digital conference, “People loved their horses too,” noting that people no longer ride horses to work just because they once loved this form of travel...

A quick perusal of the comments show customers repeatedly griping about poor screen quality, unattractive device design and the constraints of digital rights management software on books and newspapers. Mr. Bezos may be right when he says an e-reader is better than a book, but the customer satisfaction suggests why so many companies are rushing in to compete with his Kindle."

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/is-amazon-working-backwards/?hpw

A New Page; New Yorker, 8/3/09

Nicholson Baker via New Yorker; A New Page: Can the Kindle really improve on the book?:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker

Bezos: We've got issues with Google Book Search; CNet News, 6/15/09

Caroline McCarthy via CNet News; Bezos: We've got issues with Google Book Search:

"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was coy about exactly why he isn't thrilled with Google's attempt to forge its way into the digital publishing business.

"We have strong opinions about that issue which I'm not going to share," Bezos said to interviewer Steven Levy at the Wired Business Conference. "But, clearly, that settlement in our opinion needs to be revisited and it is being revisited."

In a court battle rife with twists, turns, and delays, Google has been attempting to push forward its Book Search initiative, which could potentially give the Mountain View, Calif., tech giant exclusive access to digital editions of some out-of-print books. That could, as Levy pointed out, get in the way of Amazon's goal of offering every book ever printed in every language on the Kindle and its new, bigger Kindle DX sibling. And it sounds like that's where Amazon has some beef.

"There are many forces of work looking at that and saying it doesn't seem right that you should do something, kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights," Bezos said."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10265038-36.html