Moguls are not the saviors of news organizations: they are their undoing.
Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, whose billions come from profits made from America’s extortionate health care industry, scuttled the Los Angeles Times’ Editorial Board’s decision to endorse Harris for president.
Murdoch hack, far right wing publisher and Tory operative Will Lewis has been installed by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos to drive the paper to the right and chill any reporting that could injure Bezos’ business interests under a possible Trump re-up.
Bezos and/or Lewis decided that, for the first time in decades, the Post will not make a presidential endorsement.Lewis is currently under investigation in London for his role in destroying evidence that was likely to have indicted Rupert Murdoch in his 2011 phone hacking scandal. He’s someone who shouldn’t even be allowed to work in this country. Any number of Americans could do a better, more ethical job than Lewis. And yet, once again, accommodations have been made.
As a result of Lewis’s journalistic malpractice, subscribers are cancelling in droves. I love reading the Post, but I’m not going to renew my subscription. Moguls are disabling our great newspapers. The New York Times is its own cautionary tale.
At NPR, David Folkenflik examines the collapse that is taking place. “’For the past decade, Donald Trump has been running a campaign against the media straight out of the playbook that authoritarians have used around the world, which is to threaten retaliation against news organizations if they don’t provide him with favorable enough coverage,’ says Ian Bassin, an attorney and founder of the not-for-profit advocacy group Protect Democracy. ‘We are seeing now the seeds of that campaign bearing fruit.’”
The Washington Post Guild has condemned the Post’s craven, sleazy abdication of journalistic duty. Dan Froomkin writes at Salon: “Just as these oligarchs are a plague on society, they are a plague on the news business. They have now ruined – possibly for good – two of our most treasured news organizations.”
As Froomkin points out, the LA Times and the Washington Post have now signaled to Trump that they are all in with a future fascistic United States. They will fall in line, have no fear, that’s what they are telling Herr Trump and the Republican Fascist Party.