Reasons for leaving the Washington Post

wapo.md

I canceled our Washington Post subscription. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that I should declare the causes which impel me to the separation.

1. I found Bezos’s justification unconvincing. He argues that the Post must both be unbiased and seem to be unbiased, and this is “a meaningful step in the right direction.”

   Is it? Does he argue that the Post is now more trusted? Reversing himself would have shown that he understands “those who fight reality lose” (pompous ass).

   He concedes “inadequate planning.” A step toward increasing trust would be to say why this decision was made so suddenly, flatfooting even the editorial board. OK, it wasn’t political pressure. Then what was it?

   To increase trust, he should withdraw the decision, have some real internal debate – not an arbitrary decision by God Emperor Bezos – and do it in the sensible between-elections way people have called for.

   A topic to cover: why just Presidential elections? Surely other endorsements fall under the same logic. And why have an opinion page at all? I assure Mr. Bezos that the Post’s strategy of having Thiessen and Hewitt publish the occasional obviously-in-bad-faith, wincingly badly-reasoned op-ed is not making the Post look all fair and balanced.

2. People say canceling a subscription won’t actually hurt Bezos. You should cancel Amazon Prime or AWS instead.

   1. I call bullshit. The man’s got an ego. Reportedly, 8% of online subscribers have canceled. Tell me that doesn’t sting. He attempted something, and it backfired big time. I’m happy to rub it in.

   2. ¿Por Qué No Los Dos? Because of Amazon’s ongoing enshittification, I’ve dumped my Kindle for a Kobo, I get all my hardcover books elsewhere, and I slog through direct-to-consumer checkouts and shipping fees for most every purchase. Edging up to canceling Prime. Not quite there yet.

3. The strongest argument is that we owe support for the good journalism the Post has been doing.

   1. The Post has been going downhill, turning into a lifestyle magazine, and the new newsroom management (Lewis) hasn’t exactly filled me with confidence a turnaround is imminent. So this rings a little hollow in my ears.

   2. I confess to a little schadenfreude. Journalists are not alone in being employees whose good work is being sabotaged by the bosses. The old journalistic motto of “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable” hasn’t been much in evidence. But when they’re the afflicted, they call for comfort. They’ve got a union. If they start fighting the good fight, I bet we’ll have their back.

   3. I’ve doubled my monthly donation to Pro Publica (despite still being grumpy about their “lab leak” story), and I’ve subscribed to the Philadelphia Inquirer as my replacement for the Post. Added a monthly donation to the Texas Tribune. Can’t quite stomach subscribing to my local paper again, but have tossed some money into their pay-by-the-article scheme.