Oct 26·edited Oct 26Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos are fools if they think Trump won't come after them and their assets, including their newspapers and bazillions of dollars. He's learning how to steal from everybody, including allies, from his BFF Vladimir Putin. Cowards and fools.
"Do not obey in advance" is the first rule of resisting/defeating tyranny, from historian Timothy Snyder. ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
PS - I think it's a current Atlantic article that points out that Trump is contemptuous of everyone who caves to him. Politicians especially.
You are so right Laurie, these guys are both very wealthy, way beyond merely wealthy, and no matter if they endorse Kamala and the insipid orange turd wins, they will still be very wealthy. They can both travel the world like royalty although that might change if the IOT is re-elected and he bumbles the world into WWIII, traveling might not be as available an option as it is today. If they stand up to be counted just like all of us here today are doing, they will have brought honor on themselves and their vital profession. I expect an about face tomorrow when they see the reaction of their readers, if I don’t see it tomorrow, I cancel.
I mentioned this awhile back, bears repeating...every journalism prof who ever taught undergraduate courses must be spinning in his/her grave...this situation is a National travesty...a free press cannot be owned by individuals who depend upon the government for their business success or failure.
If they think that this will keep Trump from getting revenge for earlier editorials about Trump, they are not as smart as we thought. He now knows they will do his bidding. Shameful.
Agreed. I guess reading history was not their path to wealth. In fact, I am guessing they cannot imagine how uncool it will be to be an American billionaire, when the country has been turned into the third world version of the Wild West. I guess Soon-Shiong can go back to South Africa where he is from, along with Musk, where they will be big names in a small country. Or, they can go elsewhere, but they won't belong. Musk can also go to Canada. Being a big fish in a small sea is not like being a big fish in the most powerful country in the world, which the US will not longer be, at least not financially, and certainly not for quality of life. So, we ned to fight these Oligarchs every step of the way. One way I have done this, is not to subscribe to the NYT, LA Times, or WaPo anymore. I part of the blue wave that will hopefully become a Tsunami of people leaving them in their wake.
I was appalled by this news. It points out the cowardice of billionaire owners who, having more money that anybody else, place their financial interest ahead of that of the greater good. This is worse than the Gilded Age period, and a repudiation of what both President Theodore Roosevelt and President Lyndon Johnson did during their tenures.
Not unlike the days before Hitler took power, the newspaper publishers and Plutocrats cowered in an effort to retain their status and wealth. Many of them learned their fate in June 1934 when they were purged by Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives.
“A metaphor these people used a lot – because most of them were noble horsemen – is that they wanted to ride the Nazi movement like a horse. . . .Many members of the German elites thought [Hitler] was going to be the useful idiot who was going to play their games. They thought he could be controlled. . . except that within three or four months, they discovered that they were the horse and that Hitler was the horseman.” (University of Edinburgh historian Stephan Malinowski, contributor to a the BBC Two series, The Rise of the Nazis.)
I just cancelled my long-time subscription to WaPo. It appears that the only mainstream newspaper providing honest, clear eyed coverage of US politics is The Guardian.
Also the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Boston Globe. Both have endorsed Harris. I subscribe to the Inquirer because their political columnist, Will Bunch, is terrific. Canceled my subscriptions to the WaPo and the NYT some time ago.
That's because I use George Monbiot as my pen name, haha. I donate to The Guardian, but you understood that I meant that. I live in the UK part time and have been reading "The Grauniad" for years. I like Monbiot, Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, and Owen Jones, among others. Hugo Lowell, their investigative reporter who is based in Washington, is very good.
Fair enough, Susan Jane.. I wouldn't have thought of it in terms of money, but it's entirely appropriate. I chuckled at George Monbiot—one of the first Guardian writers I ever read. If you don't follow
Steven Greenhouse and are interested in labor issues give him a try. I followed him first for years in the Times. I've probably read Hugo Lowell without noticing the name. I'll look for it. Cheers—
But contributors is another word for freelance regulars. Then I'm going to guess that you meant that you comment there, which I think everyone here can concur is an agreeable pastime.
I already canceled my subscription to the NYT after they criticized Biden's debate. I am thinking seriously of cancelling the WAPost. Thanks! The Guardian is my alternative.
Canceled NYT months ago; canceled WaPo today. Still got my Guardian subscription, plus all you talented Substack writers - to whom: thanks. "Democracy Dies in Darkness" - nice motto, if you can keep it.
Oct 26·edited Oct 26Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Well, yes, if only the opinion section matters to you, why not the Guardian. It's too bad they don't have the resources for full U.S. news reporting. At least they're responsible enough to pass along news second-hand from U.S. sources like the Post and Times.
Compared to two papers that used to be the bastion of fairness and are now running dogs for far right demigods? Really? The Guardian has columnists - American columnist - who still speak the truth. You might want to check them out, it is not second hand, it is real and accurate reporting.
I don't know Lowell but Sullivan is a columnist—Opinion, that is, not reporting U.S. news—a writer I've admired since pre-wapo when she was the nyTimes ombudsman after a distinguished career on the news side of a Buffalo paper, rising to editor. She's one reason I read the Guardian. Her column on the Wapo-LAT scandal is up now. NB the kicker, the first word of the hed, the first word on the page: Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/25/news-election-endorsements-washington-post-la-times
Understand the meaning of this early Halloween poll!
Nate Cohn definitely did his Halloween marketing job for senior Times management. He frightened/discouraged liberals and gave Trump latitude to claim voter fraud if he doesn't win. (Which he won't).
The Times poll has overweighted GOP respondents all year, underweights liberal Dems and ignores first time voters. The result is a +4 to 5% bias in favor of Trump. We should read this poll as 52% Kamala to 48% Trump. And stay focused on GOTV. Voters win elections not polls.
The lack of endorsements tell us who and what they are. Papers don't vote, people do. Voting is the one thing these rags can't control. There is another way we can "vote," cancel your subscription. Money seems to be the only thing these Quislings understand.
On the one hand these billionaire owners want their tax cuts. On the other hand they think that Trump might be mean to them. These assholes have more money than God. There is nothing that Trump can do that will really hurt them. We can therefore only infer that these greedy pricks want Trump to win s their already obscenely low taxes will go down and they can piss the money away on another home or yacht. But in my book Bezos and Murdoch are the same - poisonous cancers on the country.
IKR? Look at all the brave and sane people who have stood up against him, with so much to lose and limited resources and these billionaires are afraid?
To not endorse Harris is to endorse Trump. It is not to remain neutral. It would be like refusing to choose between Hitler and the Weimar Republic, and for once, now that we know that Trump said that Hitler did some good things, no one can be accused of hyperbole in analogizing Trump to Hitler.
The reluctance of the L.A. Times and Washington Post to publish support for Kamala is simply Capitalism at work - kinda chicken, kinda stinky-shitty......actually a suppurating, festering, rotting, moldering, violent, predatory, contagious lower ring of hell but we only see the chickenshit part in public.
You're hurting only yourself, certainly not Bezos. What do you think a wapo cancellation means to Jeff Bezos? A few thousand cancellations? You just make yourself less informed. If you want to punish Bezos, kick him where it hurts—in the Amazon. Cancel Prime. Cancel Black Fridays. Shop local. If you must order online, search the item to learn who else sells it. You'll probably find a better price.
To the Jeff Bezos point: you might be right. Fortunately, I live in a university town, where I can ditch Amazon without losing access to a deep selection of locally sourced books, records, etc.. I don’t begrudge anybody’s decision to keep buying from them or to subscribe to the Washington Post. But I bet it’s more than a few thousand people. Virtually everybody I know hit “unsubscribe” when they announced this. It’s a revolting decision that makes the Washington Post organization appear untrustworthy. And it seems like their staff and union grasp this.
If it's several thousand cancellations, they are hurting even more of the best journalists in a country that needs them desperately—and not the boss who betrayed them.
They also let a bunch of great journalists go a couple of years ago, apparently in anticipation of the “red wave” of 2022. Since then, you can find Paul Waldman here, on Substack (he also does a smart podcast with his sister). Robert Kagan resigned tonight. Ruth Marcus’s column a few hours ago read like a resignation letter. I think the best journalists, including Truscott here, are appalled. Writing isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. Bezos just effectively told the most opinionated, informed, tuned-in, and stylistically apt, of his employees - that his potential government contracts matter more than what they know to be the truth. I love journalists and journalism, and that is why I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post.
Oct 26·edited Oct 26Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Wrong. It's the editorial board that went along with this decision. The editor in chief came from a Murdoch rag The old guard are the real back bone of the paper. Most are of retirement age. The "new" journalists? They are the ones who seem to back Mussolini's idea of what government is what is best for the United States. Or have you not read their latest columnists? Misogyny is now on the rise and so are the cowards who sit at the top the Post's letter head. All those other enterprises you have mention? What have they got to do with being a voice allegedly for democracy? Nothing. They are simply commerce. Those who live in rural areas do not have the luxury of "shopping local." "Local" could be close on to 25 miles away. It's not so simple.
I can't make heads or tails of this. Corresponds to no reality of the industry or this story that I'm familiar with—or of what I known of the Post, except that yes, Will Lewis is the Murdoch hire with a well-publicized shady past who is fronting for Bezos.
Voters today don't care about newspaper endorsements, it's just wealthy oligarchs hedging their bets. Enjoy the non-political coverage and ignore the editors who really don't matter. The WaPo journalists do some great stories, support them and don't worry about the out of touch owners.
Agreed! But endorsements do still serve a couple of useful purposes. One is to require the paper to think through its position till it's a presentable package. The other is to let the world know where the owner stands on an important issue. The LAT and Wapo have done that quite dramatically. … Dan Wolf. the Village Voice founding editor, hated to write, one reason the only editorials the Voice ran were endorsements. I remember Dan sweating those endorsements, but he got them written.
Every single day leads to fresh indignity and outrage when it comes to Trump. I am outraged but not surprised. But in the case of Bezos and the LA Times owner what they are not factoring into their craven calculation is that the economic primacy we have enjoyed since the end of WWII depends on the rule of law being above any man or party. There is nothing magical about the dollar such that it’s effectively the world currency. Lose the rule of law, which Trump is promising to accomplish, and we become Argentina or even Venezuela. Bezos and company should think hard about that
Cowards, all of them! Remember the German industrialists who backed Hitler and later regretted it - Fritz Thyssen comes to mind. This current crop of bastards think they’re safe if they bend the knee, but no one is safe in the hands of an authoritarian, and I hope they pay a high price for their support.
Whatever the price they pay, If we go full Nazi what the rich pay will be very little in comparison to what we pay. They know how to hold on to their riches.
Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos are fools if they think Trump won't come after them and their assets, including their newspapers and bazillions of dollars. He's learning how to steal from everybody, including allies, from his BFF Vladimir Putin. Cowards and fools.
"Do not obey in advance" is the first rule of resisting/defeating tyranny, from historian Timothy Snyder. ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
PS - I think it's a current Atlantic article that points out that Trump is contemptuous of everyone who caves to him. Politicians especially.
You are so right Laurie, these guys are both very wealthy, way beyond merely wealthy, and no matter if they endorse Kamala and the insipid orange turd wins, they will still be very wealthy. They can both travel the world like royalty although that might change if the IOT is re-elected and he bumbles the world into WWIII, traveling might not be as available an option as it is today. If they stand up to be counted just like all of us here today are doing, they will have brought honor on themselves and their vital profession. I expect an about face tomorrow when they see the reaction of their readers, if I don’t see it tomorrow, I cancel.
Drumpf has called them The Enemy of the People, for god's sake! Do they not think Drumpf will be coming after them. Are they that craven??
Yes
👍👍
Or that naive? YES again!
I mentioned this awhile back, bears repeating...every journalism prof who ever taught undergraduate courses must be spinning in his/her grave...this situation is a National travesty...a free press cannot be owned by individuals who depend upon the government for their business success or failure.
If they think that this will keep Trump from getting revenge for earlier editorials about Trump, they are not as smart as we thought. He now knows they will do his bidding. Shameful.
Agreed. I guess reading history was not their path to wealth. In fact, I am guessing they cannot imagine how uncool it will be to be an American billionaire, when the country has been turned into the third world version of the Wild West. I guess Soon-Shiong can go back to South Africa where he is from, along with Musk, where they will be big names in a small country. Or, they can go elsewhere, but they won't belong. Musk can also go to Canada. Being a big fish in a small sea is not like being a big fish in the most powerful country in the world, which the US will not longer be, at least not financially, and certainly not for quality of life. So, we ned to fight these Oligarchs every step of the way. One way I have done this, is not to subscribe to the NYT, LA Times, or WaPo anymore. I part of the blue wave that will hopefully become a Tsunami of people leaving them in their wake.
I was appalled by this news. It points out the cowardice of billionaire owners who, having more money that anybody else, place their financial interest ahead of that of the greater good. This is worse than the Gilded Age period, and a repudiation of what both President Theodore Roosevelt and President Lyndon Johnson did during their tenures.
Not unlike the days before Hitler took power, the newspaper publishers and Plutocrats cowered in an effort to retain their status and wealth. Many of them learned their fate in June 1934 when they were purged by Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives.
“A metaphor these people used a lot – because most of them were noble horsemen – is that they wanted to ride the Nazi movement like a horse. . . .Many members of the German elites thought [Hitler] was going to be the useful idiot who was going to play their games. They thought he could be controlled. . . except that within three or four months, they discovered that they were the horse and that Hitler was the horseman.” (University of Edinburgh historian Stephan Malinowski, contributor to a the BBC Two series, The Rise of the Nazis.)
https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/hitler-millionaire-backers-how-german-elite-facilitated-rise-nazis-third-reich/
Machine guns trump horses. That's a lesson from WWI.
I just cancelled my long-time subscription to WaPo. It appears that the only mainstream newspaper providing honest, clear eyed coverage of US politics is The Guardian.
Also the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Boston Globe. Both have endorsed Harris. I subscribe to the Inquirer because their political columnist, Will Bunch, is terrific. Canceled my subscriptions to the WaPo and the NYT some time ago.
I'm with you. I now subscribe to the Guardian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe. Good papers who deserve support.
Good to know. I’m a sickened by the WaPo decision and must cancel.
Will Bunch is fantastic. I subscribe to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he is largely the reason why.
I regularly contribute to The Guardian. We need them.
I do too!
Seriously, Marlene?! You've been a Guardian writer all this time and I never knew it?!!!
Is Susan Jane the name you use in the Guardian? I don't recall seeing that byline.
That's because I use George Monbiot as my pen name, haha. I donate to The Guardian, but you understood that I meant that. I live in the UK part time and have been reading "The Grauniad" for years. I like Monbiot, Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, and Owen Jones, among others. Hugo Lowell, their investigative reporter who is based in Washington, is very good.
Fair enough, Susan Jane.. I wouldn't have thought of it in terms of money, but it's entirely appropriate. I chuckled at George Monbiot—one of the first Guardian writers I ever read. If you don't follow
Steven Greenhouse and are interested in labor issues give him a try. I followed him first for years in the Times. I've probably read Hugo Lowell without noticing the name. I'll look for it. Cheers—
HA! Dang, I wish I were, difny!
But contributors is another word for freelance regulars. Then I'm going to guess that you meant that you comment there, which I think everyone here can concur is an agreeable pastime.
I already canceled my subscription to the NYT after they criticized Biden's debate. I am thinking seriously of cancelling the WAPost. Thanks! The Guardian is my alternative.
Cancel WaPo. They are irredeemable
Canceled NYT months ago; canceled WaPo today. Still got my Guardian subscription, plus all you talented Substack writers - to whom: thanks. "Democracy Dies in Darkness" - nice motto, if you can keep it.
Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.
Well, yes, if only the opinion section matters to you, why not the Guardian. It's too bad they don't have the resources for full U.S. news reporting. At least they're responsible enough to pass along news second-hand from U.S. sources like the Post and Times.
Compared to two papers that used to be the bastion of fairness and are now running dogs for far right demigods? Really? The Guardian has columnists - American columnist - who still speak the truth. You might want to check them out, it is not second hand, it is real and accurate reporting.
Give me a break.
The Guardian is a great paper and is a non profit. No oligarchs there. It's also over 200 years old and has been a bastion of press freedom.
OK, Carol-Ann. Here's your break.I'll spare you advice on what you can do with it.
Back at you. And if you play bridge? Doubled and redoubled.
Again, I don't know what you're talking about. This dialogue is over.
It never began.
Margaret Sullivan and Hugo Lowell cover US news. None of the US coverage is second hand.
Right! They have offices around the US and terrific reporters covering news here.
I don't know Lowell but Sullivan is a columnist—Opinion, that is, not reporting U.S. news—a writer I've admired since pre-wapo when she was the nyTimes ombudsman after a distinguished career on the news side of a Buffalo paper, rising to editor. She's one reason I read the Guardian. Her column on the Wapo-LAT scandal is up now. NB the kicker, the first word of the hed, the first word on the page: Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/25/news-election-endorsements-washington-post-la-times
I cancelled the Times last week, WaPo this week, and gave more money to the Guardian!
The NYTs is hardly better
Understand the meaning of this early Halloween poll!
Nate Cohn definitely did his Halloween marketing job for senior Times management. He frightened/discouraged liberals and gave Trump latitude to claim voter fraud if he doesn't win. (Which he won't).
The Times poll has overweighted GOP respondents all year, underweights liberal Dems and ignores first time voters. The result is a +4 to 5% bias in favor of Trump. We should read this poll as 52% Kamala to 48% Trump. And stay focused on GOTV. Voters win elections not polls.
Trump and his fascist overlords have already won. The election hasn’t even been held, and these companies are cowering and cringing in anticipation.
What a sad fucking day in these United States.
No. They. Have. Not.
The lack of endorsements tell us who and what they are. Papers don't vote, people do. Voting is the one thing these rags can't control. There is another way we can "vote," cancel your subscription. Money seems to be the only thing these Quislings understand.
On the one hand these billionaire owners want their tax cuts. On the other hand they think that Trump might be mean to them. These assholes have more money than God. There is nothing that Trump can do that will really hurt them. We can therefore only infer that these greedy pricks want Trump to win s their already obscenely low taxes will go down and they can piss the money away on another home or yacht. But in my book Bezos and Murdoch are the same - poisonous cancers on the country.
IKR? Look at all the brave and sane people who have stood up against him, with so much to lose and limited resources and these billionaires are afraid?
To not endorse Harris is to endorse Trump. It is not to remain neutral. It would be like refusing to choose between Hitler and the Weimar Republic, and for once, now that we know that Trump said that Hitler did some good things, no one can be accused of hyperbole in analogizing Trump to Hitler.
The reluctance of the L.A. Times and Washington Post to publish support for Kamala is simply Capitalism at work - kinda chicken, kinda stinky-shitty......actually a suppurating, festering, rotting, moldering, violent, predatory, contagious lower ring of hell but we only see the chickenshit part in public.
Sexism and racism. Plain and simple.
Not enough spoken recognition of this fundamental truth about a huge swath of Americans. Thanks for saying it.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍👍💥
Can you make that a little more specific? 😜
Also cancelled my Post subscription today. It was heartbreaking.
You're hurting only yourself, certainly not Bezos. What do you think a wapo cancellation means to Jeff Bezos? A few thousand cancellations? You just make yourself less informed. If you want to punish Bezos, kick him where it hurts—in the Amazon. Cancel Prime. Cancel Black Fridays. Shop local. If you must order online, search the item to learn who else sells it. You'll probably find a better price.
To the Jeff Bezos point: you might be right. Fortunately, I live in a university town, where I can ditch Amazon without losing access to a deep selection of locally sourced books, records, etc.. I don’t begrudge anybody’s decision to keep buying from them or to subscribe to the Washington Post. But I bet it’s more than a few thousand people. Virtually everybody I know hit “unsubscribe” when they announced this. It’s a revolting decision that makes the Washington Post organization appear untrustworthy. And it seems like their staff and union grasp this.
If it's several thousand cancellations, they are hurting even more of the best journalists in a country that needs them desperately—and not the boss who betrayed them.
They also let a bunch of great journalists go a couple of years ago, apparently in anticipation of the “red wave” of 2022. Since then, you can find Paul Waldman here, on Substack (he also does a smart podcast with his sister). Robert Kagan resigned tonight. Ruth Marcus’s column a few hours ago read like a resignation letter. I think the best journalists, including Truscott here, are appalled. Writing isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. Bezos just effectively told the most opinionated, informed, tuned-in, and stylistically apt, of his employees - that his potential government contracts matter more than what they know to be the truth. I love journalists and journalism, and that is why I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post.
I don't get the logic of punishing those journalists you so revere for a decision they deplore and had no control over, but so be it.
I have kept Wapo because there are some really outstanding columnists whose work I enjoy. They deserve to keep their positions.
Wrong. It's the editorial board that went along with this decision. The editor in chief came from a Murdoch rag The old guard are the real back bone of the paper. Most are of retirement age. The "new" journalists? They are the ones who seem to back Mussolini's idea of what government is what is best for the United States. Or have you not read their latest columnists? Misogyny is now on the rise and so are the cowards who sit at the top the Post's letter head. All those other enterprises you have mention? What have they got to do with being a voice allegedly for democracy? Nothing. They are simply commerce. Those who live in rural areas do not have the luxury of "shopping local." "Local" could be close on to 25 miles away. It's not so simple.
I can't make heads or tails of this. Corresponds to no reality of the industry or this story that I'm familiar with—or of what I known of the Post, except that yes, Will Lewis is the Murdoch hire with a well-publicized shady past who is fronting for Bezos.
Voters today don't care about newspaper endorsements, it's just wealthy oligarchs hedging their bets. Enjoy the non-political coverage and ignore the editors who really don't matter. The WaPo journalists do some great stories, support them and don't worry about the out of touch owners.
Agreed! But endorsements do still serve a couple of useful purposes. One is to require the paper to think through its position till it's a presentable package. The other is to let the world know where the owner stands on an important issue. The LAT and Wapo have done that quite dramatically. … Dan Wolf. the Village Voice founding editor, hated to write, one reason the only editorials the Voice ran were endorsements. I remember Dan sweating those endorsements, but he got them written.
So did I.
Kay Graham is spitting on Bezos from the grave. He can launch all the space penises he wants he will never be a man of any value.
These men, already gluttonously wealthy, have turned in their citizenship card.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Every single day leads to fresh indignity and outrage when it comes to Trump. I am outraged but not surprised. But in the case of Bezos and the LA Times owner what they are not factoring into their craven calculation is that the economic primacy we have enjoyed since the end of WWII depends on the rule of law being above any man or party. There is nothing magical about the dollar such that it’s effectively the world currency. Lose the rule of law, which Trump is promising to accomplish, and we become Argentina or even Venezuela. Bezos and company should think hard about that
I guess sexism + racism = spineless selfishness for American oligarchs.
I am so disgusted with these once-respected papers. It literally hurts my soul, as a retired professional journalist.
Cowards, all of them! Remember the German industrialists who backed Hitler and later regretted it - Fritz Thyssen comes to mind. This current crop of bastards think they’re safe if they bend the knee, but no one is safe in the hands of an authoritarian, and I hope they pay a high price for their support.
Whatever the price they pay, If we go full Nazi what the rich pay will be very little in comparison to what we pay. They know how to hold on to their riches.
Cowards, and complicit in the coming of fascism. "Anticipatory obedience", indeed.
Exactly so.
Not chicken shit....gutless publisher shit. Have to be human to be so cowardly...to know it's the wrong thing to do but do it anyway.
...