Washington Post readers aren’t buying Jeff Bezos’ excuse-making
Readers of the Washington Post flocked to read Jeff Bezos' essay this week defending his decision to stop his editorial board from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. They wanted to see his explanation of the inexplicable, to understand why he shot the fluorescent lighting out in the editorial board room of the paper whose banner reads “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Predictably, Bezos' defense failed more miserably than the Union Army at Fort Sumter in 1861.
The Post won’t stop hemorrhaging editors and subscribers with the see-through bandages of illogic and flawed analogy offered by Bezos. Here are four of his essay’s more obvious fallacies.
The setup was clear from the opening reliance on overwrought generality: There is greater distrust today of the media than ever before, and, Bezos implores,a respected newspaper’s endorsements are part of the problem. “Endorsements,” Bezos wrote, “create a perception of . . . non-independence.”
Please.
Let’s import a dose of reality. Bezos is essentially arguing that because the media is distrusted, the paper is not going to endorse the candidate running against the man who has done more than any person in American history to create distrust in the media. From that circular reasoning, the billionaire argues in effect, “The way we’re going to reestablish a public perception of journalistic independence is by having the owner of the paper step in and quash the independent judgment of the sage and seasoned journalists on the editorial board.
Does the........
© Salon
visit website