The other day, the billionaire Washington Post owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, received an angry letter signed by what the New York Post described as “400 Washington Post journalists.”
The New York Post headline:
Hundreds of Washington Post staffers beg owner Jeff Bezos to intervene at troubled paper: ‘We need a clear vision’
The story said, in part, this:
More than 400 Washington Post journalists sent an angry letter on Wednesday to owner Jeff Bezos, pleading with him to intervene on the paper’s direction to restore the “trust that has been lost.”
The move comes as the Beltway broadsheet has seen a growing list of distinguished journalists head for the exits after Bezos intervened to stop the outlet from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Bezos defended the decision in an op-ed for the paper, which saw nearly 300,000 readers cancel their subscriptions in the days after the endorsement was killed.
….'We are deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions that have led readers to question the integrity of this institution, broken with a tradition of transparency, and prompted some of our most distinguished colleagues to leave, with more departures imminent.'
The earlier incident of the Post non-endorsement of Harris before the election led to angry resignations. The New York Post reported this on the staff rebellion at the time:
Marty Baron, the former editor of The Washington Post, called the paper’s decision “cowardice, with democracy at its casualty....Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, has not publicly weighed in on the presidential election amid claims by some WashPo insider who speculate Bezos does not want to alienate Trump as he gains momentum to recapture the White House.
On political endorsement https://t.co/e5OTZhylIE
— Marty Baron (@PostBaron) October 25, 2024
This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.
A similar decision to withhold endorsement by Los Angeles Times owner and billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong roiled that newsroom and led to the resignations of the paper’s editorials editor and two editorial board members.
Meanwhile, there was news a while back there before the 2024 election, revealing that, as mentioned above, editorial board members of the Los Angeles Times had quit as a result of the Times declining to endorse the Democrat presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Let’s cut to the chase here.
These are not journalists, professionals practicing “independent journalism.”
They are, in fact, left-wing political activists masquerading as “independent journalists.” They associate "independence" with activism.
It’s a free country. God Bless America. But if the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times were not newspapers but rather manufacturers of some non-media related product, the Federal Trade Commission would be within its rights to swoop down on the two "news" papers with charges of perpetrating a fraud on consumers of their product.
To say that both the Post and the Times are lefty journals is hardly revealing news.
What’s new here is that in sending the letter from Post staffers to Bezos, not to mention the resignations at both newspapers when the owners declined to endorse Vice President Harris, the quitters boldly reveal what has long been accused of them. Their objective is installing Democrats, not reporting independently.
In a few days, Donald Trump will be sworn in. And it is more than reasonable for Trump to believe that the Washington Post will not be about honest, just-the-facts journalism in its news coverage of his presidency.
That the paper would have liberal critics in its opinion pages is normal and to be expected. But all of this hubbub has succeeded in doing is reveal in the open what has been a not publicly acknowledged fact by the paper.
That fact: The Washington Post reporters -- not just the columnists or editorial board -- are anti-Trump leftists. And as the old joke goes, if it were discovered that Trump could walk on water, the Washington Post headline would read: Trump Can’t Swim.
No one could miss that the Post was waging war on Trump in the first term. Post staffers have fessed up to the reality that can't tolerate anything less in a second term.
Message received.
