He's getting exactly what he wanted; to corrupt and neuter another stronghold of journalistic integrity, and turn it into his propaganda network.

He doesn't care whether it makes money or not. He's already richer than god, makes more profit than its entire worth every single week, and if Trump wins his personal tax cuts will be in the tens of billions.

Yup, he'll lose more revenue than those 10% WaPo subscribers under Harris. If Harris raises Amazon's taxes half a percent, this loss would become rounding error. Bezos wants Trump to win and wants to be Trump's friend for his own financial gain.

This is key. Follow journalists and editors who leave WaPo and support them wherever they go.

Otherwise this may just be playing into the hand of Bezos to cripple yet another outlet that speaks truth to power.

ProPublica does phenomenal work.

Wait… your wife is ditching Kupier, which doesn’t exist yet, because of a single stunt Bezos pulled, but Starlink, run by the guy funding Trump’s election campaign, is still in the running?

Isn't Starlink Musk's outfit?

Sure he needs to be taxed into dust. But he doesn't own the WaPo because it's making him rich. He runs it because it's a propaganda machine for him.

He lost 10% of his subscribers, almost immediately, when he tried to use it that way openly. Which says:

• it's now a 10% less effective propaganda machine (and that number will keep growing)
• it's possible that it was never effective in the first place

Given those two propositions, he might just unload it, which would be nice for the rest of us.

Nah, Bezos wants Trump. Lower taxes, less regulation. He knows the backlash would be even worse if he forced an endorsement.

It really is all about the fuckin money.

Do we really need an explanation as to why capitalists are okay with supporting fascists?

But not necessarily for the reasons you think.

It was pretty much exactly the reasons I thought.

Note the other facet is not just the odds being close, but the consequences being different. If Trump wins, these people know he will be vindictive. In his first term he killed a $10 billion deal with Amazon due to WaPo's coverage and taking it out on Bezos at large. If Harris wins, then she's expected to be more proper, so kowtowing to Trump wouldn't have a downside. So bad behavior to a point is rewarded even in a good outcome, because the good behavior response doesn't call to be all pissy over this sort of thing.

Of course, would be mitigated if huge businesses chock full of ulterior motives didn't outright control big journalism outlets.

The editorial board had written an unpublished endorsement for Harris, and they have been publicly endorsing presidents for the past ~50 years. This year they did not, and recently it was made public why: the billionaire owner, Jeff bezos, ordered them not to.

It is more about there being proof that the owner is having editorial control of the paper, than about any endorsement.

The owner controlling editorial decisions is to many, myself included who also cancelled my subscription, a violation of journalistic principles and not the product we are paying for.

I want to read a publication where skilled journalists can speak their mind, and that is no longer certain at the Washington Post, instead I must interpret their opinions as filtered through a billionaire's goals and opinions. I do not want to pay for that.

After decades of endorsing presidential candidates, this is the election they decided to stop doing so for.

You are missing literally all of the context. WaPo has endorsed in every presidential election since 1988. Suddenly, weeks before an incredibly contentious election, and right around the time Bezos-owned businesses met with Trump, this Bezos-owned publication decides to "return" to its "roots" (after three and a half decades). Even if it's not actually sinister (debatable, but we may never know), the appearance of impropriety is a serious issue and damages WaPo's credibility.

Newspapers report facts in one section and editorial opinions in a different section. They are clearly compartmentalized from each other. They are both useful. The editorial staff has a long history of making presidential endorsements. We're free to disagree with the endorsement, they are not telling us what to think, just giving us a perspective to consider among all the others we hear.

What the Post did is highly abnormal. It's not like the editorial staff decided out of nowhere to write up this endorsement. They did because it's an automatic thing they're expected to do before elections.

Think about watching a sports broadcast. There's typically two guys, one reporting play by play (facts) and the other adding color/analysis.

One candidate is a politician. One candidate is a fascist.

There’s a very clear dichotomy. And this is the first time in 50 years that they’re NOT making an endorsement. It’s very obviously an attempt by Bezos to avoid being targeted by Trump’s wrath if he wins.

It is extremely common for newspapers to support a candidate. Maybe even the norm. It certainly is for local politics.

That's great in theory, but this isn't the Election to not endorse a candidate. They've also been endorsing candidates for a while. So it's a clear signal of bezos tacit endorsement of trump.

I believe that the main reason for people as wealthy as him to own newspapers is not the money, it's the influence. This does hurt that