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Democracy Dies In Darkness, and the Washington Post goes first [1]

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Date: 2025-02-28

It's been on the masthead of The Washington Post since 2017. But "Democracy Dies In Darkness" is not just a slogan, it now appears to be the endgame.

On Wednesday, Feb. 26th, Jeff Bezos announced that the paper's editorial pages would now focus on "personal liberties and free markets."

An editorial page doesn't focus on anything. It covers whatever is current and needs to be highlighted. Personal liberties sounds good, but we know what that means when it comes from either a Republican or an oligarch. It means the personal liberties of the right wing to say what they want to, without censorship or control or moderation.

Free markets. What in the world does he mean by that? Is he saying that he will follow right through with Trump's plan for capitalism? Which apparently is to destroy it in the process of using it to line his own pocket.

So, of course, the opinion editor, David Shipley, is leaving the newspaper.

"We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others," Bezos said. Newspapers have supplied "a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job."

No, it doesn't. The internet is full of disinformation and misinformation. News gathering is a task. You can't just make it up like Donald Trump does. Social media has no accountability to source information. That's why everybody does it. It doesn't cost anything. Real news gathering costs money. The internet can be great for investigative reporting, but it doesn't cover events in real time with background.

You can read Bezos full post here.

The Post's reporters shared their outrage and made it known if their areas of reporting were encroached upon, they would resign in protest.

Reportedly, Will Lewis, the CEO, said the changes to the editorial page was "not about siding with any political party." We all know that's not true. The refusal to let the editorial staff endorse Kamala Harris was the start of this.

The editor of the paper, Matt Murray, said the changes would only affect the opinion section and that "the independent and unbiased work of the Post's newsroom is unchanged."

I seriously doubt that anyone at the Washington Post, or it's subscribers, are going to believe that now.

Marty Baron, former editor of The Washington Post, saif:

"There's been a long tradition at the Post of having a variety of opinions on the opinion pages, and that's part of its heritage. Bezos supported that since he acquired the paper, he advocated for that internally, but his most recent decision represents a real betrayal of the heritage of the Post and a betrayal of the very idea of free expression." "I don't know how they're going to make it an interesting opinions page when all the opinions are the same, but I would predict that readership of the opinion page is likely to drop off dramatically. Nobody's going to say anything different, so it's going to be exceptionally dull."

This is the article at WAPO on the change to the Washington Post.

If you remember, the Washington Post put in an artificial intelligence editor that would bring up opposing views. They also have it to summarize comments, this is what it said about the responses in the comments. When I looked there were 9,823 of them.

Then there were the categories of comments. They didn't mince words.

As usual, there were a number of comments using expletives showing how upset they were.

The top comment says it all. "New Rule: Democracy Dies In Darkness...I'm just doing my part - Bezos."

It's only a matter of time before the seasoned and talented staff feel just what they're fearing will happen: that the paper will go far-right.

The one I'm looking to hear from is Eugene Robinson. I checked his X and Bluesky account, and Feb. 25th are his last posts. If you remember, on Feb. 7th, Trump wanted Eugene fired. He could get work anywhere. So, if he gets angry enough about this, he just may quit on principle.

I was really hoping that the AI generated stuff and members of the editorial board quitting along with the political cartoonist was the end of it. It wasn't.

Another slogan that seems to have changed is "Do not obey in advance!" With Trump, it's become, "Do not! Obey in advance!"

Bezos has taken a great newspaper and turned it into a shill for the same viewpoint as the Wall Street Journal. Or maybe no viewpoint at all, except to avoid stepping on Trump's toes or any of his goals.

Bezos didn't invent the masthead phrase. It was popularized by Bob Woodward, who attributed it to a judge in a First Amendment case.

Democracy didn't just die in darkness, a newspaper did.

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