Raymond J. de Souza: Jeff Bezos is good for journalism

The Washington Post — which marked the first Trump administration by adding the motto: “Democracy Dies in Darkness” to its masthead — had prepared an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris. It’s owner, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, killed it, saying that the paper would not endorse any candidate, not now nor ever again.

Incandescent rage followed. Staff resigned. Some 200,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions. Writers writing about writers wrought their hands over what the Post’s writers were not writing.

The level of outrage was as if Amazon had eliminated free shipping, except that this concerned far fewer people. Bezos rushed out his own editorial to explain himself titled, “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.”

He argued that too many readers thought the media was biased, and editorial endorsements tended to confirm that view, while also having zero impact on voters. So, best to drop them altogether.

Bezos denied that he killed the Post’s endorsement of Harris because he wants favours for his companies from a future Trump administration.

“When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post,” wrote Bezos. “Every day, somewhere, some (executive) from … the philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials,” he wrote. “The Post is a ‘complexifier’ for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.”

“You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests.”

It’s the point Donald Trump has been making for nine years; his personal wealth makes him immune to big donor pressure. Had he been dependent on the Republican donor class, they would have cut him off and pushed him out long ago. Many progressives who loathe him would have preferred that he was less independent, that big money had bigger influence.

The Democratic donor class demonstrated that power this summer with brutal efficiency, cashiering a sitting president and installing Harris as his replacement, despite her never having gained a single vote in a primary election.

The same writers lamenting that big-money Bezos prevented them from endorsing Harris would have never had Harris to endorse, had not big-money Democrats not vetoed the choice of Democratic primary voters. So big money is ambiguous.

Bezos keeps the money-losing Post afloat. His wealth sustains a historic title and provides journalism of a certain quality. Without Bezos, the Post’s output would be more swamped than it already is by celebrity gossip. The Daily Mail is the world’s number one news site — and the merchants of monetized anger podcasting and YouTubing.

Is Bezos and his wealth good for journalism or bad? Democracies need news, especially reporting rather than commentary. If the market does not provide it adequately, who will? Philanthropists are one answer. Generous ones. The Post lost US$77 million last year.

Government is another option. That has been, in part, Canada’s answer, with federal government subsidies paid to media companies, including Postmedia. Many voices have decried this, fearing it means government control — or at least, subsidized journalists pulling their punches for fear of losing government cash.

There is more logic to that than evidence — has the National Post suddenly become Trudeau-friendly? Stephen Harper signed cheques for the CBC for nine years. Did that influence their reporting?

Someone has to pay for the news. Readers only ever paid a portion. Local papers had a quasi-monopoly on reaching readers, vacuuming up vast advertising sums from every supermarket, car dealership and movie theatre in the city, with fat editions landing on porches daily.

The imagined promise of the digital world was that lots of readers paying small amounts would make up for the disappearance of big advertisers. It has only been feasible for a very few prominent titles — not even The Washington Post.

A relatively few journalists, running small outlets, churn out high quality commentary that finds a paying audience. But there is little reporting — which is expensive — and the news generated is scant compared to what was once produced by metro newsrooms.

It has been thirty-six years since Noam Chomsky published Manufacturing Consent. The left then argued against a “corporate media” that buttressed a governing system which in turn protected and promoted monied interests. Now, “corporate media” is a term bandied about more by the right, for much the same reasons.

The business model of media has changed radically; the digital age seeks not to manufacture consent, but the opposite, dividing readers and viewers into ever small segments of shared outrage.

Journalists don’t like being subsidized by government. They don’t like having one billionaire owner who can call the shots, even if he rarely does so. But the preferred paymasters, advertising chicken on sale or the latest rom-com, are no longer paying.

Has quality journalism become like the arts, supported by a combination of subscribers, state subsidies and philanthropy? Has news become like hockey arenas and international sporting events, where public money is deployed on the grounds of contributing to an ill-defined but deeply felt public good?

The rage against Bezos is a protest against a philanthropic model of media. But in many places where no Bezos-like benefactor exists, the voices that would protest have long since disappeared.

National Post