Last edited Sat Jan 11, 2025, 10:38 PM - Edit history (1)

is like moving from a beef slaughterhouse to a pork slaughterhouse to protest animal cruelty.

I am sympathetic to whatever staff there is at WashPo that has what could be recognized as journalistic integrity. They don't have any good options in the legacy media, and the newer media is surely less secure than working for an outlet owned by a mega-billionaire. But moving to NYT is scarcely a way to signal that you have any journalistic integrity.

I cancelled my NYT subscription first. Then WaPo when Jeff became a beggar.

And there's nothing available at the smaller newspapers

Yes he cares about that.

money is money

these crooks stand to make so much more.

Similarly, Musk doesn't care that Twitter loses money. He and Bezos have much bigger deals to make, and buying up media outlets to destroy them seems to be an acceptable cost of doing business, for them.

I'm curious to see what happens to Meta, though. That's a private company and it's the main source of Zuckerberg's wealth. He makes billions selling the data Facebook users share with him. If the users leave, Zuckerberg might feel the hit.

It's a hollowed out shell of the honored bastion of reporting it used to be. It took awhile, but after stripping the integrity from a robust publishing icon, bezos managed to kill it.

In classical journalism, the objective is to inform the readers with truth, as efficiently as possible. The classical form says that you put the essential story in the first paragraph. In subsequent paragraphs, you fill in details for those that have more time or interest to consume the complete story.

Look at WashPo and most of the other legacy newspapers cum online news. You will find that in >90% of the online articles, the classical form is completely reversed. It is now the clickbait model, where you start with a misleading headline. Then the first paragraph hints about something sinister, evil, sexy, or bloody, but provides no useful information. In subsequent paragraphs, you lead the viewer along, making them skip past ad after ad. Finally, in the 10th paragraph -- or maybe on the third page, they might provide some of the essential details.

Bezos didn't turn the newspaper world from journalism to clickbait -- at least not by himself. It is everywhere. But by putting WashPo on that track, he guaranteed the demise of this once proud paper.

And you know what, Bezos is OK with that. That's one less news source that could report on Amazon's abusive labor practices and destruction to local economies.

You know, actual JOURNALISM, and not the scattered mess we have today.

If readers get the gist of the story in the first couple of paragraphs, they might skip reading the whole story. So the writers and editors bury the facts into the middle or end of the story to keep us puzzled and to keep us hooked.

It's diabolical what they're doing now.

I figure that AI will take over soon, the reporters will be fired because they expect to be paid salaries and benefits. Chatbots are less demanding and far cheaper to manage.

...was waning with age. I've noticed a lot of news articles written the way you described. I find myself doing a lot of skimming or sometimes just giving up on the article in frustration.

Who benefits and how?

Instead we're going ass backwards at an extremely alarming rate, all so a couple of jackass billionaires can become trillionaires. WTF.

It's a rolling wave of Stupid threatening to engulf the entire planet. When it's subsided, the survivors might get that period of enlightenment if they're still capable of cognition.

is that they don't give a damn about what they destroy on their way up. At least that's the impression I'm getting. F these people and their exponential selfishness.

Most of his money he wouldn’t have a fiancée.

I cancelled my WaPo subscription. It helped me more than it hurt Jeff.

You didn't get out quick enough, and now the quality papers have filled all their openings for senior staff. Better get used to writing clickbait, or start your own quality news service with your compatriots.

Disclaimer: I didn't bother to read the article.

Here's the deal: certain monied interest who own and controls this entity is not bothered in the least by any purported "reeling."

Notwithstanding the reeling of those journalists who would otherwise do good works, the failure of this news pillar--to its owner--is tantamount to dropping and losing a quarter in a gutter. IT DOESN'T MATTER to Bezos.

Seriously. He and his ilk are laughing as we, hair afire, lament the rapid deconstruction of institutions and practices that most of society has long relied on as pillars of our cultural landscape.

Can we forge a new landscape;? Or am I envisioning a new country? The rapidity of change coupled with the fleeting of time suggest a "rupture" in the historical continuum--and that phenomenon warrants a much different discussion.

It's not reeling that's going on at the Washington Post. It's called circling the drain.

Fuck Jeff Bezos. If there is a hell, I hope Satan has a special circle reserved just for him.

the courage to risk their careers and not be dictated to by a billionaire what not to write about.

When bezo blocked the post's presidential endorsement, I immediately cancelled my subscription to the WP, and will not even consider going back unless bezo is no long affiliated with the paper.

when WP spiked an Ann Telnaes cartoon that depicted billionaires including Bezos bowing before trump. She quit as a result. I've been a fan of hers for years. I'd already canceled my subscription after the Post refused to endorse Kamala. If I hadn't I'd cancel over their lack of support for Telnaes. She showed us what courage looks like.

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

immediately subscribed to her Substack. She’ll probably make more $ there than she did with the Post anyway.

As long as Jeffrey keeps meddling with editorial content

still there. I’ll keep subscribing for her and the advice columnists like Carolyn Hax. The comments boards on the WaPo are sometimes informative as well.

It's basically impossible to read now.

I like some of the columnists and articles but am thinking about unsubscribing.

Now that is down to $2 a month for online access. Desperate times...

He made the decision to drop his trousers and crawl under the sheets with Donnie so he might as well get comfortable 😒

Link: https://archive.ph/45IUT

Silly me, I actually believed him ... then!