First of all, I read a real newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, so I find the menstrual cramps that occupy the Washington Post boring and hilarious at the same time.
Being that said, this is a classic case of not understanding the business you are buying. When Wayne Huizenga owned Waste Management, he would not buy a garbage route or carting company until he actually rode on the truck with the garbage men and saw them in action. Bezos should have known better; you have a newspaper that is entrenched in liberal to left politics and considered itself part of the blob that is Washington for decades; the Graham family was Washington royalty, Bezos is not, nor never will be. What did he expect when he wanted to make the paper more competitive and attempt to have more balance in reporting and editorializing? The staff is so entrenched in the mindset of bashing anyone not in their orbit that they have temper tantrums, meltdowns, and resign in protest with the engrained belief that “democracy is under threat,” instead of either going to another newspaper or doing what many legacy media refugees have done, gone into business for themselves in new media or Substack where they can write in peace and attract new paying subscribers; but many believe that this new media is the peasantry and is beneath them, so they cry and whine and sound alarms that no one cares about.
If Bezos is serious about reforming the Washington Post, he may need to shut it down and fire everyone; then hire a completely new staff with real, hungry journalists, and rebrand it as a new Post with trust and information gathering as the top priorities, and an editorial page with real diversity and interaction with readers. It may hurt for a while, but the paper will eventually earn more respect and more importantly, new paying subscribers, not just in the blob, but nationwide. When you own it, it’s your baby, sometimes you do have to throw the baby out with the bath water……..
Bezos had run a business that swallowed other businesses routinely, but those businesses generally followed a similar model. He didn't understand the media (which is why Amazon's video business is also a mess) and doesn't understand how to deal with it.
He would have to really slash and burn the Post, but he likely knows that it would destroy its political value to him.
Thus Catch 22. Which is what the paper is counting on.
Try the comments section at the WSJ. Same woke garbage prevails. And many reporters and columnists at the WSJ worked to smear Trump with lies and innuendoes.
What you have just described is the culture of the FBI for the last three decades. Kash Patel is going to find the same challenges await him. Your last paragraph is the answer to both reforms and catch 22 will stymie them both.
The baby is a red diaper doper baby! (H/T to Michael Savage!)
Except as the owner, Bezos can simply fire all the wokesters clogging up the Post if he wanted, and hire actual journalists. I am sure they are out there or there wouldn't be alternative media and substack.
Agree mostly, but I have to add some details as an insider in academia. It's not the case that administrators are terrified of activist faculty and students, as if they might be closet centrists. I assure you that they do not get jobs unless they swear fealty to ANTIFA-BLM-DEI-ESG-LGBTQ-NGO. The boards of trustees are mostly chuckleheads and rubber stamps. Their principles are discovered by raising a moist finger to the wind. https://surak.substack.com/p/academic-insurrection-2
The foundations of capitalism are the individual and their right to own and profit from property. The foundations of freedom of the press are the press and all its analogs as property. But the individual and their persons represent the basis of property, if you own nothing, you at least own yourself and your labor has market value. The employees of a newspaper are entirely fitting within a democratic capitalist society in walking away from their employment if they don't feel as though the property they offer to the newspaper is not being valued enough. If they represent a community of ideologues, then they can act collectively, this being freedom of association. All this driven by a freedom of conscience implied by all of the freedoms we hold by law.
But this is not a perfect system. People of bad conscience or no conscience can act and organize against all these freedoms. And of course they can own newspapers or have the power to fire those whose conscience they oppose. We hope that the power of people of good conscience will survive, prosper and protect their achievements and advance the cause of societies who move with the same good conscience.
Perhaps this is why the mainstream media is becoming increasingly irrelevant? Because it - like the university education, especially in humanities - has become activism, rather than a pursuit of enquiry.
First of all, I read a real newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, so I find the menstrual cramps that occupy the Washington Post boring and hilarious at the same time.
Being that said, this is a classic case of not understanding the business you are buying. When Wayne Huizenga owned Waste Management, he would not buy a garbage route or carting company until he actually rode on the truck with the garbage men and saw them in action. Bezos should have known better; you have a newspaper that is entrenched in liberal to left politics and considered itself part of the blob that is Washington for decades; the Graham family was Washington royalty, Bezos is not, nor never will be. What did he expect when he wanted to make the paper more competitive and attempt to have more balance in reporting and editorializing? The staff is so entrenched in the mindset of bashing anyone not in their orbit that they have temper tantrums, meltdowns, and resign in protest with the engrained belief that “democracy is under threat,” instead of either going to another newspaper or doing what many legacy media refugees have done, gone into business for themselves in new media or Substack where they can write in peace and attract new paying subscribers; but many believe that this new media is the peasantry and is beneath them, so they cry and whine and sound alarms that no one cares about.
If Bezos is serious about reforming the Washington Post, he may need to shut it down and fire everyone; then hire a completely new staff with real, hungry journalists, and rebrand it as a new Post with trust and information gathering as the top priorities, and an editorial page with real diversity and interaction with readers. It may hurt for a while, but the paper will eventually earn more respect and more importantly, new paying subscribers, not just in the blob, but nationwide. When you own it, it’s your baby, sometimes you do have to throw the baby out with the bath water……..
Bezos had run a business that swallowed other businesses routinely, but those businesses generally followed a similar model. He didn't understand the media (which is why Amazon's video business is also a mess) and doesn't understand how to deal with it.
He would have to really slash and burn the Post, but he likely knows that it would destroy its political value to him.
Thus Catch 22. Which is what the paper is counting on.
Try the comments section at the WSJ. Same woke garbage prevails. And many reporters and columnists at the WSJ worked to smear Trump with lies and innuendoes.
What you have just described is the culture of the FBI for the last three decades. Kash Patel is going to find the same challenges await him. Your last paragraph is the answer to both reforms and catch 22 will stymie them both.
The baby is a red diaper doper baby! (H/T to Michael Savage!)
The WSJ editorial page is great. The news coverage of the Middle East is indistinguishable from WaPo and NYT.
This is why the NYT and the WP are truly Pravda on the Hudson and the Potomac
Except as the owner, Bezos can simply fire all the wokesters clogging up the Post if he wanted, and hire actual journalists. I am sure they are out there or there wouldn't be alternative media and substack.
He can. And it's the only way to take control of the paper.
The trouble is what's the value of the paper to him? As a brand or a way to influence D.C. politics?
Burn it down and start over. What would Elon do?
Agree mostly, but I have to add some details as an insider in academia. It's not the case that administrators are terrified of activist faculty and students, as if they might be closet centrists. I assure you that they do not get jobs unless they swear fealty to ANTIFA-BLM-DEI-ESG-LGBTQ-NGO. The boards of trustees are mostly chuckleheads and rubber stamps. Their principles are discovered by raising a moist finger to the wind. https://surak.substack.com/p/academic-insurrection-2
With any luck, the Washington Post will soon go the way of CRACKED magazine.
CRACKED magazine was actually worth reading
The foundations of capitalism are the individual and their right to own and profit from property. The foundations of freedom of the press are the press and all its analogs as property. But the individual and their persons represent the basis of property, if you own nothing, you at least own yourself and your labor has market value. The employees of a newspaper are entirely fitting within a democratic capitalist society in walking away from their employment if they don't feel as though the property they offer to the newspaper is not being valued enough. If they represent a community of ideologues, then they can act collectively, this being freedom of association. All this driven by a freedom of conscience implied by all of the freedoms we hold by law.
But this is not a perfect system. People of bad conscience or no conscience can act and organize against all these freedoms. And of course they can own newspapers or have the power to fire those whose conscience they oppose. We hope that the power of people of good conscience will survive, prosper and protect their achievements and advance the cause of societies who move with the same good conscience.
Perhaps this is why the mainstream media is becoming increasingly irrelevant? Because it - like the university education, especially in humanities - has become activism, rather than a pursuit of enquiry.
Fire them all.