Will Jeff Bezos Save the Washington Post the Way Elon Musk Rescued X?

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Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is one of the smartest, richest, and most influential Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and he may also have just administered the first dose of the desperately needed antidote to the ideological poison that is rapidly destroying what little is left of traditional American journalism.

When the outcry in the Post newsroom quickly screeched to the highest possible decibels of Leftist protest and childish virtue-signaling following publisher William Lewis’ October 25 announcement of no presidential endorsement in 2024 or thereafter, the ugliest truth about what Bezos got when he bought the Post went on full display.

The Post newsroom is full of highly educated men and women who call themselves “journalists” but who in fact function, knowingly or unknowingly, as broadcasters of the approved narrative about American politics and policies. When they are prevented from broadcasting that approved narrative as they wish, they throw temper tantrums, pick up their toys, and resign in protest.

Whose “approved narrative,” you may ask? Bezos nailed it when he explained a few days later that “the Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way  — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)”

That certain elite are the people who control the news flow throughout the mainstream media and the entertainment world’s creative processes, who dominate the grant-making processes of the philanthropic world, who have all but stamped out freedom of thought in our college classrooms and substituted “Critical Race Theory” lies for fact-based teaching of American civics and history in the public schools, and who increasingly occupy key marketing and strategic decision-making positions in the Fortune 500.

They are in short the obsessively politicized minions and operators of the Left’s “Long March Through the Institutions” of American life. Their goals are centralized government on the European Socialist model (or worse), the subjection of individual rights to a variety of leftist ideological redefinitions of the public interest, and the intrusive freedom and creativity-killing surveillance and supervision of bureaucratic “experts.”  

But this fact about who takes the Post seriously as a credible news source is only half of the reality check that Bezos posted in response to the no endorsements uproar in his newsroom. It is of such importance that it was Bezos’ opening salvo of reality:

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Another way of putting it would be that everyday Americans aren’t buying, literally and figuratively, the elite’s narrative that is broadcast incessantly throughout the MSM, including the Post. That reality, as Bezos explained, coupled with the lack of credibility and trust of readers, are the two prime ingredients of the lethal poison.

Then came Bezos’ bottom line, noting that, just as is required of voting machines:

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased.

Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

The elite narrative mentality is killing journalism in the Post newsroom, just as it is in the Los Angeles Times newsroom, USA Today, and dozens of other media organizations that sprang from the golden age of American newspapers and news broadcasting.

But here’s another reality: As Elon Musk quickly discovered when he took over Twitter, introducing the internal ranks of decision-makers and performers to the harsh reality of the consequences of their approach is only the first and easiest step.

Some of those exhibiting the symptoms of the poison will wake up to reality and accept the antidote — reporting verified facts about government programs and politicians without fear or favor — but many more won’t. They will conduct guerilla warfare.

Musk bought a social media giant with more than 8,000 employees in 2022. Today, X has about 1,500 employees. Many of those who are no longer there left of their own accord; others did not.

The Post’s biggest union represents about 1,000 reporters, editors, researchers, and others. Some of these men and women remember what real journalism looks like and how it’s done. Will Bezos have the courage to do what must be done with those who don’t and refuse to learn?