10/27/24

BETRAYED!

After the Washington Post shamefully bows to Trump, what should readers do? Cancel?  Keep footing the bill?

WE ARE BETRAYED.
     In a nauseating, abject, obsequious act of subjection to Donald Trump, the Washington Post this week killed its expected endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.
     It was a betrayal on many levels: of the paper's extraordinary journalistic history, its talented staff, its readers, and most importantly, of the country, at an unprecedented hour of peril.
     It was Jeff Bezos’ doing.
     He’s the owner of the Post, the founder of Amazon and one of the world’s richest men. He moved the election’s outcome toward Trump, perhaps only by inches, but closer.
     What should those who care about a storied newspaper and its place in our public life do about this shocking, surprising treachery?
     Should the paper’s editorial board, which had prepared an endorsement, resign? Should the rest of the staff – the writers, analysts, cartoonists, columnists likewise quit?
     Should readers – myself included – cancel our subscriptions?
     Tens of thousands of readers, who denounced the endorsement debacle in online comments and letters to the paper, threatened to do just that – quit paying for the Post, and thereby give up reading it.
     To all of those possible moves, I say no – please don’t.

THE STAFF, INCLUDING THE EDITORIAL BOARD, should stay put and continue producing its insightful commentaries. The reporting staff should keep working and writing, turning out some of the country’s best political, investigative and other journalism.
     And the readers should keep paying the Post’s bills, galling and infuriating as that might seem.
     Newspapers, especially the good ones like the Post, which have survived the near collapse of the industry, are simply too precious and rare to be allowed to disappear, even if, at the moment, it seems that the Post has brought injury upon itself.
     As for those of us who are subscribers, withdrawing our financial support is simply a self-inflicted wound, one that’s only momentarily satisfying in the heat of our collective tantrum.
     The fact is that newspapers are unique, even in the digital age. The really good ones, with huge, experienced staffs, are the only news outfits equipped to do proper journalism.
     So if we undermine the paper’s financial footings, we only hurt ourselves, as well as the country.
     It may well be that the Post will not survive, anyway. While it flourished initially after Bezos purchased it and wisely recognized the Internet could make it a national, subscription newspaper, the paper these day seems not to be so healthy, financially or journalistically.
     And if Trump wins the election with the help of cowards like Bezos, Trump has promised to include high-quality news outlets among his first targets. It’s just what dictators do.
     Then there’s the practicality of the limited responses available to the paper’s staff and to the readers.
     Bezos won’t care if reporters and other staffers disappear from his payroll; he won’t miss the readers’ contributions – the fact is the Post's online subscriptions aren’t all that expensive, so a rich man may be willing to lose thousands of readers.
     And frankly, now that the paper is struggling, he probably won’t care very much if “his” Washington Post lives or dies.
     He is, after all, a traitor to journalism, or he wouldn’t have done what he did in the first place – refused to honor his own writers’ voluminous reporting that showed Trump to be a clear and present danger to the country.

 MANY OF THE POST'S past and current writers, eloquent folks that they are, have written on the Post’s own pages and website with far more insight and spirit than I can, about the endorsement disgrace.
     Marty Baron, the iconic former editor of the paper, was quoted in a Post story:
     “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
     Look, I don’t hold out much hope for the long-term future of the Post after this traumatic injury.
     But I want to be wrong.
     Maybe the Post will continue its courageous, remarkable work. Maybe Jeff Bezos will hold a news conference today, apologize for his mistake, read the endorsement out loud and then publish it – thanking the readers for caring so much.
     It’s obvious in the real world that the paper can continue only if the staff stays put and readers foot the bill.
     At the very least, let’s not do Donald Trump’s dirty work for him.