• zcd
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      11 days ago

      Billionaire PR basically

      • pdxfed@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Just need a little bit more consolidation, trust us, just this little bit more, maybe once more…

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 days ago

      Journalism has been captured in the same way and by the same class of people who captured the government regulatory bodies. We live under the totalitarian dictatorship of profit.

  • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Great. Awesome. I’m glad it’s being outed, and don’t want to diminish it.

    But I hope the media appreciates the uphill climb they’ve created for us (ok, me, but it sounds lamer) to trust that they’ll hold each other accountable because for years now they’ve abandoned their accountability to the public in favour of the shareholders.

    How are we supposed to even trust that you aren’t acting just like big business? Some competition here, a little C level collusion jerk there…

    Damn, I got ranty. But until they show proper disdain in the industry for the likes of Fox News it’s hard not to get cynical.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      I mean, he picked the Murdoch toad and told him to bring all his buddies over to sewer up the place.

      Bezos can afford to lose millions of dollars — even $77 million. What he can’t afford to lose is his paper’s credibility, which starts with a publisher who is waist-deep in a mess of bad publicity right now.

      I disagree. He can totally afford to do that. They jettisoned all public interest duties when they failed to call out trump for any of his rapes or lies, when they shit on hillary all throughout 2016 and when they spent most of the trump reich normalizing his demented sociopathy.

      WaPo is conservative thought in a liberal sockpuppet and this putrid scandal is apt. I hope it damages them severely, but i doubt it.

  • girlfreddy
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    11 days ago

    As Folkenflik noted in his story, there’s a famous tale of then-St. Petersburg Times top editor and executive Gene Patterson insisting the paper put his DUI arrest on the front page of the paper to show the Times would cover the news — regardless of who was involved. As a former staffer myself at the St. Petersburg (now Tampa Bay) Times, I can tell you that the Patterson-DUI story remains legendary, and not the least bit surprising.

    That’s how it’s supposed to work, as opposed to Lewis reportedly trying to squash coverage.

    If a publisher can’t keep their grubby little fingers out of the newsroom, they’re useless. Sounds like WaPo will be headed down the drain if Bezos doesn’t fire Lewis immediately.