The News

I submitted the following to the Washington Post last week:

To the Editor and Publisher and Owner:

Based on the cowardly decision by your owner to not publish your planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for President and Tim Walz for Vice-President, both my spouse and I have canceled our subscriptions to the Washington Post.  Regardless of the clarification issued by Mr. Bezos, the decision to stop endorsing Presidential candidates reeks of being intimidated by Donald Trump. 

This cancellation letter follows our recent cancellation of our subscription to The New York Times due to its flawed and misrepresentative coverage of both the Trump candidacy and Israel, the cancellation my Los Angeles Times subscription a couple years ago (because who needed all of the Big Three?) and, finally, the cancellation of my Wall Street Journal subscription after its purchase by the Rupert Mudoch media empire.

As an ex-Chicagoan, I never subscribed to the Chicago Tribune as an adult (I really do not know why, other than a decline in quality and I did not live in Chicago) and I quit reading the Chicago Sun-Times when Mike Royko quit writing his column although now that WBEZ Public Radio bought the paper, I might have to revisit that decision

Given all that, I signed up for the Boston Globe.  I hope I can stand all the Patriots and Celtics coverage – the price to be paid for, hopefully, their editorial independence.  My initial take is that it is more local than I thought.  However, the Globe is no longer owned by The New York Times company having been purchased by a group led by John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox.

I do subscribe to the paper of the closest major city which has good local coverage, but is light on international, heavy on sports.  I cancelled my local village newspaper a while ago as its editorials and op-ed pieces were dominated by conservatives and ministers/preachers (the latter also applied to its news and events content).

I have really given up on social media as a source of information as it is rife with extreme positions, misinformation, racism, antisemitism, and ignorance.  I have a Feedly account that provides articles from The Atlantic magazine, Algemeiner.com (Middle East coverage), the aforementioned Boston Globe, The Forward (the former Yiddish newspaper in English), and The Times of Israel.  The emphasis on the Middle East and Jewish topics was heavily augmented after October 7, 2023.  The rest of my Feedly feeds are from a bevy of cooking and recipe publications. 

On the my.yahoo.com feed, I get local weather, ESPN news, Yahoo National News, BuzzFeed, NPR news, Yahoo’s “News for You,” and headlines from the New York Times and Washington Post (as this requires no payment).

I follow a few Substack blogs about Middle East and Jewish topics – again most of this engagement came after October 7.  However, other than the folks I subscribe to (paid or free), I do not do much perusing because I find the commentary and posts to be the typical bullshit that is produced by mostly nameless people visiting their ignorance and vitriol on the rest of us.

What I do not spend a lot of time on are extreme partisan blogs about US policy or politics as I find the extreme positions of both parties unpalatable.  Thus I rarely dig into The National Review or MSNBC let alone the stuff that is just plain nutty.  I have a LinkedIn account, but usually just to see what current and previous colleagues are up to and to stay connected.  I also, of course, post my blogs on LinkedIn as I gave up Facebook – not only is Facebook a bottomless time sink but also I cannot and will not support a service that exercises little to no control over what is displayed.

This is all a long way of saying I believe I am reasonably informed.  What I consider fairly objective reportage is rare in my opinion, compared to the obvious misinformation published by organizations and persons dedicated to something other than the truth or the facts.

Oh, yes, I forgot to provide the last line in my note to the Washington Post:

“Democracy dies in darkness^*

I think it has been getting darker for quite some time.  Watching the Washington Post and Los Angeles times break their tradition of endorsing Presidential candidates reeks of cowardice and putting the business interest in front of the public interest.  More details will emerge over time, but having your top editor quit because the owner intervenes on a decision like this is usually not good news for the independence of the media. 

If our fourth estate fails to do its job because of business or political pressure, then it has failed in its mission to monitor and influence all other branches of government and society.  When the media allows itself to be silenced, it abrogates its explicit responsibility of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues (paraphrasing from various Wikipedia sources).

Jeff Bezos, who pulled the plug on the Washington Post’s endorsement and is now blaming the Post’s editors at the Post, wrote:

“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.”

When it comes to reporting, I actually agree with Bezos..  But when it comes to editorial positions influenced or worse, dictated by money, he could not be be more wrong.  Credibility comes with integrity.  Bending the editorial knee because you are worried about the impact on your other business is not acting with integrity and does not build credibility.

Communist and fascist governments censor media.  When the media believes the government will enact reprisals for its coverage and editorial positions, we start getting closer to that we should not stand for and I cannot help to believe that is what happened to the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.  Such threatened reprisals would be in direct conflict with the First Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Conclusion:   It  is our interpretation of that amendment that has allowed the truly partisan lying and misrepresentation to occur.  I find it hard to believe the founders thought that lying and purposeful misrepresentation was “free speech.”  I think they meant that the government be prohibited from enacting laws against citizens criticizing the government and objecting to its actions.  The founders wanted no one be put into jail for mocking the President or saying that they were doing an execrable job (as happened frequently under the Kings and Queens of England).  That is a far cry from lying, inciting violence, and so forth.  The editorial “page” was meant to be about varying opinions, not competing for who can invent the biggest whopper.

If the media cannot or will not do its job regarding election news and editorial positions it is time to change the rules, like going back to the “equal time” fairness doctrine.**  Reversing Citizens United would also help as I do not believe that money is “free speech,” in fact, what is happening right now is evidence that it is the polar opposite. 

As for journalists who act more as advocates than reporters, that is, unfortunately, a burden we must bear in a society that believes in the First Amendment.  However, our “media” has gone way beyond advocacy.  It appears that getting the whole story, reporting about both sides of a debate, and fact-checking are no longer requirements for good reporting.  Getting their first with whatever information is available seems more the current norm.  And that norm is doing a disservice to its customers.

 In this new world of social media, the line between opinion and purposeful misrepresentation is a fine one.  I have not yet parsed out what should be done about that.  Without any governmental position on this, it has been left up to ordinary citizens to try to make the prevaricators pay the price for their misbehavior.  However, making citizens the party responsible for bringing action against the media liars (e.g., Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones among many others) seems like a pretty ineffective method of deterring such activities.

* “Democracy dies in darkness” is the WAPO’s equivalent of the NYT’s “All the news that’s fit to print.” 

** The Fairness Doctrine was a U.S. communications policy implemented by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949, subsequently eliminated in 1987 that required licensed radio and television broadcasters to:

• Present fair and balanced coverage of controversial issues of interest to their communities.
• Grant equal airtime to opposing candidates for public office.
• Devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance.