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Legendary #WashingtonPost Editor, #MartyBaron, Slams #Bezos for ‘Betraying’ Paper with #MAGA Makeover
Fmr WaPo executive editor Marty Baron condemned #JeffBezos’ revamp of the paper’s #opinions section in a statement to the Daily Beast, saying he was “sad & disgusted” by the #billionaire’s demands.
#FourthEstate #journalism #media #FreePress #censorship #propaganda #trumpaganda #ViewPointDiscrimination #Trump #law #USpol
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-wapo-editor-marty-baron-sad-and-disgusted-at-bezos-opinions-overhaul/
#Bezos said on Wed he would mandate the paper’s #opinions section to focus on supporting #FreeMarkets & #PersonalLiberties, saying those pieces w/opposing views can “be left to be published by others.”
The move was rebuked by current & former #WashingtonPost staffers, though it was praised in a trolling post by #Trump’s WH.
#MartyBaron — played by Liev Schriber in Oscar-winning movie Spotlight—served as the paper’s executive editor from early 2013, months before #Bezos purchased the Post, through to early 2021. He documented his relationship w/the #Amazon founder in his book Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, & the #WashingtonPost.
In his statement, Baron wondered how Bezos’ support for personal liberties squared with his mandate for limited views on the #opinion pages.
“It was only weeks ago that The Post described itself as providing coverage for ‘all of America,’” #MartyBaron wrote in his statement. “Now its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, those who think exactly as he does.”
…Baron also accused #Bezos of acquiescing to #Trump & the his attacks on the #press for his own business interests.
#Bezos ended the #WashingtonPost‘s decades-long tradition of presidential endorsements—& scrapped a planned #endorsement of #KamalaHarris—last fall, & he appeared alongside other #tech *leaders* [#technocrats / #oligarchs] at Trump’s inauguration…. He also donated $1M to #Trump’s inaugural cmte.
“There is no doubt in my mind that he is doing this out of #fear of the consequences for his other business interests, #Amazon (the source of his #wealth) & #BlueOrigin (which represents his lifelong passion for space exploration),” #MartyBaron wrote Wednesday. “He has prioritized those commercial interests over The Post, & he is betraying The Post’s longstanding #principles to do so.”
…[#MartyBaron said], #Bezos’ closer proximity to #Trump at the inauguration & through #Amazon’s production deal on a #MelaniaTrump documentary did not appear to fulfill his public goal of increasing the #WashingtonPost’s independence. “It was a sign of dependence, not independence—the dependence of Amazon, #BlueOrigin & Bezos on Donald Trump," he wrote.
@Nonilex Amazon Web Services is more exposed than the retail outfit -the secure and self-contained AWS GovCloud sites complete directly with the Microsoft Azure equivalent as one of the two cloud service sites where sensitive data can be stored and applications run. It would only take one decision "move to Azure" to take away a lot of higher margin income. It would've course been an engineering nightmare for those engineers who have not yet been fired.
There has been litigated contention between Microsoft and the government about this in the past, I seem to recall.
@Nonilex I don’t think Amazon dot com is his money maker. It’s AWS and the government contracts that make him super rich.
@Nonilex
"...he is betraying The Post’s longstanding #principles to do so.”
It's not just the Post he's betraying.