At one time I thought the billionaire Jeff Bezos was the savior of the Washington Post. With that kind of money he could keep the paper going as a hobby, and he didn’t need to fear financial pressure from advertisers. I had not reckoned with his craven sucking up to Trump, refusing to endorse in the presidential race, spiking a cartoon critical of Trump, giving a huge sum of money to the Trump inauguration.
But it just got much worse. Their old slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is no longer part of the Post. Darkness has arrived. The new slogan is “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
The L.A. Times is a shadow of its former glory. I’m not sure the San Jose Mercury is even printed any more. Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal. And now the once-proud Washington Post is into “story telling.” That’s what you do with the pre-schoolers in the kids’ room at the library.
This really is a sign that our democracy is in deep deep trouble. A newspaper isn’t supposed to tell stories. It is supposed to tell the truth.
I know I’m late to the party, but I cancelled my WaPo subscription the day they refused to endorse a candidate. Today Jim Acosta left CNN because he and his integrity were being shuffled off to the midnight hour where he could offend as few MAGATS as possible. I am running out of news sources.
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