MSM "bloodbath" underway

[Occam's Banana]

THREAD: Jeff Bezos blocks Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris

The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/28/jeff-bezos-washington-post-trust/

A note from our owner.
By Jeff Bezos
October 28, 2024 at 7:26 p.m. EDT
Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a “complexifier” for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.

You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other. I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasn’t happened.

Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)

While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it. I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor. Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.

 

[Occam's Banana]

THREAD: The Establishment Media is unaware of its growing irrelevance

The Establishment Media Is Unaware of Its Growing Irrelevance
https://mises.org/mises-wire/establishment-media-unaware-its-growing-irrelevance
{Connor O'Keeffe | 30 October 2024}

Last week, the news media went ballistic after the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post blocked each paper’s editorial boards from formally endorsing Kamala Harris for president [see this thread - OB. The Times editorial editor resigned in protest. Two other members of the editorial board followed her lead. Two Washington Post columnists resigned as well to signal their disapproval of the move, and many readers from both publications have reportedly canceled their subscriptions in response.

Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who are famous for reporting on Watergate while working at the Washington Post, released a statement stating their disappointment. Former executive editor Martin Baron called the decision “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” Nineteen Washington Post columnists signed an op-ed calling the lack of an endorsement a “terrible mistake.” And the unions of both publications released statements expressing their concern over such a move.

[...]

Which is why it’s absurd to see an absolute meltdown over whether two newspapers print formal endorsements for one of the candidates. The panic can only be understood as a symptom of the legacy media being unable or unwilling to face the fact that they are no longer the main force influencing and controlling how the public sees the world.

The establishment press does still pose a serious threat with all the various ways they distort our perceptions of the truth in ways that are politically-expedient for them and their friends in government. But the hysteria last week over the withdrawn editorial endorsements demonstrates that many are still hyper-focused on some media practices that today are largely irrelevant. And that’s grounds for optimism.

 

[Occam's Banana]

CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #390:

CNN In DEEP TROUBLE With Defamation Case: Legal Analyst Jonathan Turley Warns
https://rumble.com/v6ad8fy-cnn-in-d...-case-legal-analyst-jonathan-turley-warn.html
{Glenn Greenwald | 17 January 2025}

​

YouTube edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSmhN3glzI

​

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

The problem is not the news fake or not. The problem is Courts and judgements.
People are being conditioned to not say anything.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Absolutely. He must do moire. His work is not done.

Jim Acosta QUITTING CNN after HUMILIATING DEMOTION?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ0KLMmK_JI
{We Got Receipts | 23 January 2025}

CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #398:

Jim Acosta's Pathetic Exit from CNN Reveals Total Rot of Corporate Journalist Class
https://rumble.com/v6eplms-jim-acos...reveals-total-rot-of-corporate-journalis.html
{Glenn Greenwald | 29 January 2025}

​

YouTube edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtgZKaWLH2o

​

 

[Occam's Banana]

YouTube edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtgZKaWLH2o

​

Trump 47 is going off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJFCwpiaDgI
{Decoy Voice | 02 February 2025}

President Donald Trump had a history of disliking CNN and Jim Acosta. So it comes at no surprised during Trump's second term that Acosta would lose his slot. But now that Jim quits the news network, it does not look good for him in the future. So what will the media do now?

 

[Occam's Banana]

THREAD:

'MSNBC is Rebranding'

Aug 18, 2025

MSNBC will soon be called:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/18/comcast-versant-rename-msnbc-peacock-logos.html

MSNBC will change its name later this year and drop the storied peacock image from its branding — the first real public-facing changes in Versant’s upcoming separation from Comcast’s NBCUniversal.

The political news network will be renamed My Source News Opinion World, or MS Now, Versant Chief Executive Officer Mark Lazarus...

• CaptUSA
• Replies: 19
• Forum: U.S. Political News

 

[CaptUSA]

THREAD:

Thanks.

But another question I posed in the other thread is something worth considering. It used to be that the "news" paid people to go get the news and paid other people to deliver it. They didn't get paid for gathering the news - only delivering it. Meaning, the news delivery covered the cost of the gathering.

Will we see a corresponding market reaction where those decentralized deliverers of the news will somehow pay for the gatherers?? Often nowadays, the gathering is done for free via social media - will that be sufficient? Will we see a new host of Matt Taibbi's who do freelance investigative work?

I'm not sure this is clear yet.

 

[Occam's Banana]

But another question I posed in the other thread is something worth considering. It used to be that the "news" paid people to go get the news and paid other people to deliver it. They didn't get paid for gathering the news - only delivering it. Meaning, the news delivery covered the cost of the gathering.

The deliverers weren't paid to deliver the "news" - they were paid to deliver advertisements. Advertising provided the lion's share of revenue for news deliverers ("news" content was just the delivery vehicle). That revenue was used by the deliverers (TV & print) to employ "in house" gatherers, and/or to pay outside "stringer" services (such as AP and UPI) for the content they gathered.

Will we see a corresponding market reaction where those decentralized deliverers of the news will somehow pay for the gatherers?? Often nowadays, the gathering is done for free via social media - will that be sufficient? Will we see a new host of Matt Taibbi's who do freelance investigative work?

I'm not sure this is clear yet.

With increasing fragmentation & decentralization, audiences (and thus, advertising revenues) are shrinking for traditional or "legacy" TV & print "news" outlets. I suspect we'll see greater overlap between "deliverers" and "gatherers" (cutting out the TV/print "middlemen"), with subscription models (via venues such as Substack, for example) proliferating and gaining increased usage (Taibbi is an example of this). Advertising will probably continue to be in the mix to some degree, as well, but how (and how much) remains to be seen. (And with more and smaller operators/operations, we're also likely to see greater topical focus & specialization among gatherers/deliverers.)

But the only thing I'm really certain of is that revenues are going to become as fragmented and decentralized as audiences. However things end up shaking out, there will still be bigger players and smaller players - but there will be more players, and they'll all be competing for the same resources. Whatever else happens, the days of "the news" being utterly dominated by the likes of a relatively few giants like CNN or NYT are over.

 

[CaptUSA]

The deliverers weren't paid to deliver the "news" - they were paid to deliver advertisements.

Well, yeah. Good point. I should have said, "ostensibly".

Whatever else happens, the days of "the news" being utterly dominated by the likes of a relatively few giants like CNN or NYT are over.

And it's about time!