Media Coverage of Politics & Elections

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I subscribed to the Digital WaPo right after orangeturd was elected-for obvious reasons Today I canceled . Right before I finalized the cancelation they offered a half price option
 
mpaer said:
I subscribed to the Digital WaPo right after orangeturd was elected-for obvious reasons Today I canceled . Right before I finalized the cancelation they offered a half price option
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I cancelled last night as well. I was torn about it because the paper does good reporting for the most part and is one of the last places to do so but Bezos' bond villain actions forced my hand. It's alarming to see Musk and Bezos use the wealth the systems of the US and it's government allowed them to accumulate to tear down said US and it's government
 
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NCK9 said:

Opinion​

​

A note from our owner.​


5 min
2326

By Jeff Bezos
October 28, 2024 at 7:26 p.m. EDT
Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.
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 year’s 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.
Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t 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.
Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s 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 it’s 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.
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Hard to describe exactly how infuriating this is. Anyone with a brain who hasn't been living under a rock for the past 25 years understands that the reason many Americans claim not to trust the media is that conservative political leaders and conservative media personalities have been yelling THE MEDIA ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE through a bullhorn for decades. They are doing so not because they believe the media is corrupt, but because their explicit desire is to undermine the credibility of the media so that they can dismiss the media's true reporting about them and the corrupt stuff they constantly do. The media holds politicians accountable, and these people don't want politicians (themselves) held accountable. It is very simple, and it is very obvious to someone who is paying attention. This is a problem that the media itself has contributed very little to causing.

For Bezos to buy one of the most historically revered and important newspapers in the land, and then to turn around and essentially blame the paper itself for people not trusting the media, is absurd. The idea that not making a presidential endorsement somehow will increase the paper's credibility is absurd. The same people who scream THE MEDIA ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE will continue to do so every time the WaPo publishes a story - factual, opinion, or otherwise - that is remotely critical of the interests they represent and support. Bezos is in effect letting the terrorists win here by kowtowing to a bullying, anti-media strain of politics that wants to create a post-truth society where they can do whatever they want and have their own "media" sources lie about it, Pravda-style. Withdrawing the paper from giving its opinion on a matter of great public importance, and then framing it as necessary to revive his own paper's credibility, is the strategy of a craven, feckless coward, and Bezos knows it.

Because there ARE still people out there who trust the WaPo to provide honest and insightful reporting - its subscribers. And Bezos just gave a big ol' "fuck you" to every one of those subscribers, telling them that they are fools for trusting his own paper in the first place. They are rightly leaking subscribers, and if Bezos thinks they are going to be replaced by MAGAs with a restored trust in traditional media he's an even bigger idiot than anyone comprehends. You think people are going to flee the Joe Rogan podcast and Tucker Carlson show to pay to subscribe to a newspaper just because he came out with some sort of concern-trolling statement about how he wants people to trust the media again? Give me a break.

Bezos, given who is he, wants to try to run his media company in a way that offends exactly no one. Which, of course, is diametrically opposed to the actual purpose of a media company. Assuming he isn't just intentionally destroying the Post in the first place, and actually wants to make it a profitable business, he's going to find out very quickly that a paper that tries to please everyone ends up being useful for no one. You can't milquetoast your way into relevance. To use Bezos's own words, what the paper can "control to increase our credibility" is to report honestly and have its editorial staff give its honest opinions about matters of public import. The idea that a freaking national newspaper should self-censor its opinion on the presidential election to gain back credibility points with hypothetical potential subscribers is utter hogwash.
 
rodoheel said:
Because there ARE still people out there who trust the WaPo to provide honest and insightful reporting - its subscribers. And Bezos just gave a big ol' "fuck you" to every one of those subscribers, telling them that they are fools for trusting his own paper in the first place.
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yes
 
mpaer said:
I subscribed to the Digital WaPo right after orangeturd was elected-for obvious reasons Today I canceled . Right before I finalized the cancelation they offered a half price option
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I canceled my digital subscription to the WaPo also. But said cancellation doesn't take effect until January 2025. That somewhat lessens the tiny blow I was making.
 
05C40 said:
I canceled my digital subscription to the WaPo also. But said cancellation doesn't take effect until January 2025. That somewhat lessens the tiny blow I was making.
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Well you paid a year in advance in all likelyhood So they know your money will not return
 
mpaer said:
Well you paid a year in advance in all likelyhood So they know your money will not return
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You are correct. But me cancelling a digital subscription--that doesn't end until January--just doesn't have the same visceral feel as walking past newsstands with stacks of unsold WaPo's sitting there or newspaper rack sitting there full of unsold papars.
 
Jeff Bezos blocking the WAPO from endorsing in the 2024 Presidential Election is not surprising or bothersome.

What’s been bothersome is the WAPO behaving like the NYTimes, ABC, CBS, NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, etc. in covering politics from 2015-now. Too much “sane-washing” of Trump.
 
I cancelled but it isn’t effective until April 2025. I was disappointed that “Jeff Bezos is a cowardly eunuch” was not among options available in the “Reasons for Cancellation” so I just selected “Other” hoping for another page which would allow me to provide more detailed information. Alas….
 
politicalwire.com

Trump Says Newspapers Are Really Endorsing Him

“Donald Trump spoke at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday and claimed that U.S. newspapers that decided not to endorse in the presidential race were actually endorsing him,” Mediaite reports.Said Trump: “They think I’m doing a great job. They just don’t want to say it... I just hea
politicalwire.com politicalwire.com

Obvious he was going to make this claim


“Donald Trump spoke at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday and claimed that U.S. newspapers that decided not to endorse in the presidential race were actually endorsing him,” Mediaite reports.

Said Trump: “They think I’m doing a great job. They just don’t want to say it… I just heard USA Today has not endorsed. They said we’re not going to endorse. That means that they think she’s no good.” "
 
I've read that roughly 90% of our news media now is controlled by around five or six organizations - mostly hedge funds and some billionaire plutocrats. To expect that situation was ever going to end well was foolish. Our national media is definitely being pushed to the right by most of these people and organizations, and they will likely continue to move to the right. The list of news organizations that simply report straight news without opinion pieces or commentary or editorializing is growing awfully thin.
 
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farce© said:
I cancelled but it isn’t effective until April 2025. I was disappointed that “Jeff Bezos is a cowardly eunuch” was not among options available in the “Reasons for Cancellation” so I just selected “Other” hoping for another page which would allow me to provide more detailed information. Alas….
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Yea
I wanted an Editorial Comments option at least
 
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