• InevitableSwing [none/use name]OP
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    9 months ago

    I didn’t put this in the dunk tank because I assume Bezos doesn’t care at all. He uses the paper to advertise Prime etc. His bigger toy cost him twice as much - his $500m yacht. Also - he’s clearly betting on a Trump win and he’ll recoup any tiny WaPo losses via juicy federal contracts that come his way.

  • halfpipe [they/them]
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    779 months ago

    This feels like a serious fuck up for the western media. They handwave the existence of their billionaire owners by saying that they don’t determine what gets printed , even though that’s an obvious lie , but now they’re on record with the billionaire owner putting his foot down for Trump.

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
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    699 months ago

    I actually support the libs that unsub from wapo, not because i care about them not endorsing kamala but because this will hurt the journalists in wapo that have been posting genocide denial stories in the paper for months

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]OP
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      369 months ago

      this will hurt the journalists in wapo that have been posting genocide denial stories in the paper for months

      I think their jobs are secure. If cutbacks are needed - the paper will fire the people least important and/or who make the least amount of money.

  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
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    179 months ago

    I honestly cannot imagine canceling a subscription to a newspaper because it didn’t endorse the candidate you want. Or any candidate at all. Bizarre echo chamber behavior. I’m sure The Economist will endorse Harris like it endorsed Biden. Won’t stop me from reading that garbage because it’s the news.

  • Feinsteins_Ghost [he/him]
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    9 months ago

    I’m lazy and don’t care all that much about Beezer facts but how much of his money is derived from the newspaper, versus everything ele? Because realistically unless that is a major source of it, I can’t see this doing much of anything. There’s A, plus AWS, which make him bank. Those two things need to be what people call up and cancel if they’re gonna call up and cancel anything.

    What do you call this, just token liberalism or something?

    Only people this is going to effect is the staffers at the magazine newspaper

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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      139 months ago

      I think Bezos believes, with some reason, that it would hurt his name among some ghoul circles to be associated with an endorsement of Kamala over Trump (and the reverse is also true). It has basically nothing to do with the amount of money the paper makes (as OP demonstrates, this was actually bad for WP making money) and everything to do with Bezos’s reputation.

    • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]
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      89 months ago

      He actually runs WaPo at a loss. He subsidizes the newspaper to print propaganda. Libs are just mad that it is not the propaganda they want.

  • brainw0rms [they/them]
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    329 months ago

    I always thought newspapers endorsing candidates was cringe anyway, tbh. I’m sure Bezos’ motives were not altruistic, but I feel like people are making a bigger deal out of this than it really is.

    • nothx [he/him]
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      139 months ago

      They definitely are… WaPo could have easily just done and said nothing and no one would have been the wiser, but instead they drew attention to it.

      • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]
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        9 months ago

        No they couldn’t have. Several people quit, they cried about Bezos blocking them from endorsing Kamala, other news outlets reported it.

        All Bezos could have done in that situation would have been to say nothing but people would absolutely have been the wiser about it being blocked by him and they’d probably lose as many subscriptions as from this. I doubt his statement wins or loses him any meaningful number of subscribers, it’s just cover so he doesn’t have to come out and say actually he’d rather stay on Trump’s good side in case he wins and/or maybe he thinks Trump is better for his interests but of course would prefer associating with someone so uncouth.

        • nothx [he/him]
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          99 months ago

          You are right, I was trying to agree and say that news media could/should just not endorse. I didn’t articulate that tho.

          I agree tho, the cat was out of the bag on this situation when people started quitting over it.

  • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
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    9 months ago

    Liberals: Love getting all my objectively correct information from unbiased news sources, I sure do hate propaganda!

    Also liberals: I hereby condemn this “news” source for not explicitly endorsing my preferred candidate! I WILL DRAG THEM TO HELL!!!

    yea

  • MidnightPocket [comrade/them]
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    699 months ago

    imagine paying for news.

    next imagine paying for news baked with pro-capitalist propaganda.

    now imagine cancelling that subscription because the capitalist propaganda wouldn’t praise the blue capitalist.

  • adultswim_antifa [he/him]
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    319 months ago

    Trump calling stuff fake news and saying journalists are the enemy (heartbreaking) caused liberal trust of the media to skyrocket. They had more skepticism though not enough before that. Compared with conservatives, liberals claimed higher levels of trust of everything including literal right wing propaganda outlets since Trump. Conservatives basically only trust Fox News which is just about the only right wing propaganda that liberals didn’t trust. So I hope they wake up to the fact that all media is owned by capitalists and there’s apparently a lot of value they see in being able to influence public opinion.

  • FortifiedAttack [any]
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    279 months ago

    Seriously, what kind of thoughtless husk subscribes to a newspaper? What kind of void entity cancels their subscription to said newspaper because of electoralism?

    I feel like I already consume too much news through internet exposure alone.