A Long Overdue Reality Check
Weep not for the welfare moochers of the Washington Post
If democracy dies in darkness, surely journalists are prominently represented in the cabal of murderous night stalkers. We live at a time when the uselessness of a group may be judged by the esteem in which it holds itself—and though there’s plenty of competition, the stratospheric self-esteem of America’s journalistic class, and its baselessness, is hard to beat.
The evidence for this harsh judgement has been piling up for decades, such that public trust in journalism has steadily eroded. Today it’s all but gone. Indeed, it seems likely that the legacy media, traditional news sources like newspapers, magazines, broadcast news, are headed for extinction. And if technology has had a lot to do with this, so has the bad behavior of journalists. Just look, for example, at what’s going on right now at the Washington Post.
The WaPo is owned by Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, who purchased it in 2013. It’s no exaggeration to say that he saved the paper from extinction; financially, it was on its last legs. And so it has remained: Last year alone, the WaPo lost $100 million. Put another way, Bezos is subsidizing the paper to the tune of $100 million per annum. Given that fact, you might suppose that the WaPo’s employees are grateful for his largess. But you’d be wrong.
Washington Post staffers are in open rebellion against Jeff Bezos: So goes the headline of this story from CNN. And why do those staffers have their knickers in a twist? Because their employer, the guy who signs their paychecks, is exercising his rights as the owner of a newspaper.
The Trump restoration has caused many of America’s oligarchs, as the comrades have taken to calling people like Bezos, to rethink their political posture. From a purely business standpoint, it makes no sense to alienate the man in charge, especially if he’s an individual as mercurial as Donald Trump. Then too, the 2024 election revealed that politically, America has shifted to the right. So the owner of the Washington Post has decided to reorient its editorial policy. Here’s how he put it an email to his employees, later posted on X:
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars can be left to be published by others.
Well.
In a display of gross ingratitude and magical thinking that despite my low opinion of journalists I still found shocking, the WaPo’s staffers suffered a complete meltdown. That prize gasbag, Philip Bump, took to Bluesky, venting his rage with a what the actual fuck, and other reactions were only marginally more measured. All in all, it was a display of the entitlement mentality that would have made a welfare queen blush.
The employees of the Washington Post are behaving as if Bezos works for them, not vice versa. His job, it seems, is to provide them with employment, fat paychecks, and gold-standard benefits. Is the paper losing money? Not their problem! And how dare the owner of the WaPo meddle with its editorial policy? That’s none of his business!
Sorry boys and girls, but it is his business: Jeff Bezos owns the newspaper for which you work. As the owner, he gets to determine its editorial policy. And if you don’t like it, you can hit the door—as opinion editor David Shipley did. At least he’s not still in the building, weeping in a men’s room stall.
One can, I suppose, understand why the WaPo’s staff is so upset. Personal liberties and free markets are concepts anathema to our journalistic class. Progressivism is the party of government, journalists belong to that party, and government is the engine of regimentation and control. During the pandemic, we had a good demonstration of the synergy involved: Journalists happily supporting the government’s suppression of free speech, free assembly, even freedom of religion. Their many paeans to the First Amendment seem based on the conviction that it applies to them, but not to the proles.
And journalists’ claim to be the foremost defenders of “our democracy” is belied by their scandalous behavior during the Biden Administration: They actively colluded with his handlers to cover up President Biden’s senile decay and deceive the American people. Democracy dies in darkness, indeed. So weep not for the employees of the Washington Post. The reality check that has them in such a tizzy was long overdue.
Bravo!!!
Brilliant!