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The Washington Post Is Dead. Jeff Bezos Killed It. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-26
An Elegy for a Once-Great Institution, Now Just Another Billionaire’s Plaything
I was a boy when I first discovered the Washington Post’s opinion pages.
In those pages, I learned the power of a free press, the courage of investigative journalism, and the thrilling clarity of well-argued debate.
It was there that I followed Woodward and Bernstein, who brought down a corrupt president. It was there that I read the fearless voices that held power to account —whether in the scandal of Watergate, the lies of Iran-Contra, or the deception that led to war in Iraq.
The Washington Post was once a lion among newspapers — an institution that stood not for its owners but for the truth.
Today, that lion has been sold for parts.
And the man holding the receipt is Jeff Bezos — who, between space flights and union busting, has found the time to tighten his grip on one of America’s most storied newspapers.
When Billionaires Buy the News, The News Dies
Let’s not pretend that billionaires buy newspapers out of philanthropy.
Bezos did not purchase The Washington Post for the same reason you or I might buy a book. He did not buy it to be enlightened nor to challenge the powerful.
No, Bezos bought The Post for the same reason he bought Whole Foods, and for the same reason he bought a superyacht so large it requires its own smaller yacht to follow it around.
Control.
He did not inherit The Washington Post’s legacy—he consumed it.
And now, he’s done pretending.
With his announcement that he’s taking direct control of the opinion pages, he is making it clear:
The billionaires no longer need intermediaries.
The mask of “independent journalism” has slipped.
The guardrails between power and the press have been removed.
The message to Washington Post readers?
“This newspaper does not belong to you.”
The Oligarchy Does Not Want a Free Press — It Wants a Mirror
The purpose of an editorial page is to challenge the status quo.
To offer a marketplace of ideas, where opinions — however controversial — are at least debated on merit.
But that is not what Bezos wants.
Bezos, like all billionaires, does not want newspapers to challenge power.
He wants them to reflect it.
He wants an editorial page that:
✅ Praises him for his brilliance.
✅ Calls his critics radicals.
✅ Declares any regulation on billionaires as tyranny.
✅ Whispers that perhaps, just perhaps, a little corporate-friendly autocracy wouldn’t be so bad.
When a man worth $190 billion owns one of the most influential newspapers in America, there is no such thing as an independent editorial page.
There is only a PR firm with better font choices.
What Happens When the Press Becomes the Puppet?
Journalists are supposed to hold power accountable — not polish its boots.
But the age of newspapers as watchdogs of democracy is dying.
Why?
Because oligarchs have decided they’d rather own the watchdog than be bitten by it.
Bezos has The Washington Post.
Musk has Twitter/X, where he amplifies his delusions.
Rupert Murdoch has Fox News, where facts go to be tortured until they confess to socialism.
These are not men who love the press.
They are men who want to muzzle it.
And so, The Washington Post has been transformed — bit by bit — into something safer, something friendlier, something less likely to criticize the gods of capitalism.
Once, its masthead carried the defiant warning: 🚨 “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Under Bezos?
It might as well read: 💰 “Democracy Dies in a Stock Buyback.”
Final Thoughts: An Autocracy of Billionaires
The Washington Post is not dead because it ran out of readers.
It is not dead because it ran out of journalists.
It is dying because it was bought and sold like a commodity — not as a pillar of democracy, but as a vanity project for a man who already owns the world.
This diminishment is what happens when billionaires control the press.
The watchdogs become lapdogs.
The fearless become toothless.
The truth becomes whatever the man with the checkbook wants it to be.
Jeff Bezos will never be remembered as a journalist.
But he will be remembered as the man who took a great newspaper — and made it beg.
~Dunneagin~
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