2024-10-29 at 9:23 AM UTC
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/Actually reading this at length, it seems to be a manifesto to shake up way the media narrative is presented in order to improve buy in.
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 yearβs 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.
Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.
People are noticing. They don't trust us, voting machines or politicians.Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. Itβs a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesnβt see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
Our journalists are pretending there is no problem.Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, βIβm going with Newspaper Aβs endorsement.β None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and itβs the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but itβs a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.
Presidential endorsements are obvious sermonising and make no difference anyway.I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didnβt know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didnβt know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.
I don't care what the two candidates and their handlers think, I am above having to care about their sort.When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a βcomplexifierβ for me. It is, but it turns out Iβm also a complexifier for The Post.
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. I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasnβt happened.
People have noticed that I am rich and powerful, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's inconvenient. Lack of credibility isnβt unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And itβs a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasnβt always this way β in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)
People are tired of being sermonised to by journalists, and the alternatives they are turning to go off-script.The last paragraph is the densest, and seems largely directed to the Washington Post staff.While I do not and will not push my personal interest,
This is about the whole system. I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance β
I also won't allow you to ruin my investment.overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs β not without a fight.
You are losing out to random internet nobodies.Itβs too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world?
The control of the narrative globally is at stake.To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles.
Get off your arse.Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions.
We need basic journalistic standards as well as for you to engage with zoomer-tech better. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it.
Cope with harsh feedback. You can't just lecture people from the pulpit anymore.I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor. Many of the finest journalists youβll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.
You are lucky to have me. You are replaceable. We have standards.
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2024-10-29 at 2:20 PM UTC
What's funny is that these radical left wing freaks think they're fooling anyone anymore. It's just pathetic, at this point.
2024-10-29 at 9:50 PM UTC
igbo
Houston
[cringe your preliminary chenopodium]
jeff bezos is my son, all praise to the lord above :)
2024-10-29 at 10:19 PM UTC
So The Washington Post just backs out of endorsing anyone now really theyβre just "neutral" now of all times this is like watching your neighbor eat their own dog and pretending itβs just a casual Tuesday theyβre leaving everyone to fend for themselves like democracyβs some take-it-or-leave-it deal seriously itβs creepy silence like this is exactly what leads to the worst kind of authoritarian garbage
2024-10-29 at 10:21 PM UTC
all media should be neutral
2024-10-29 at 10:26 PM UTC
Jeff Bezos has actually contributed a lot to working people and minority communities. Through Amazon, heβs created hundreds of thousands of jobs, giving people steady work and a foot in the door for skill-building. Amazonβs affordable prices and fast delivery help everyone, especially in underserved communities, by providing access to goods that might otherwise be hard to get. Bezos is taking on Elon Musk in the space race, and honestly, heβs a bit of a hero for it. With Blue Origin, Bezos is pushing forward with a vision for space that focuses on making space travel accessible and sustainable. Heβs investing billions into technology.
2024-11-06 at 2:56 PM UTC
WHo won????? Did anyone win your stupid contest . WHo's going homke???!
