Political Memes

Initially, when Bezos bought it, reports out of WaPo were Bezos was only interested in digitization and such. Now, this election, he full bore wants Democracy to die in darkness.

For the younger crowd, WaPo wasn’t just an old newspaper, it famously broke the Watergate news that led to President Nixon’s resignation.

So Bezos killing this particular newspaper, especially on the eve of Authoritarianism, is more significant than with any of the other old school newspapers of our country.

I suppose in some ways it’s good in that it’s an open demonstration of how Presidents Musk & Trump are going to control the news that reaches our eyes going forward.

Billionaires taking over one private major news outlet or social media platform at a time. Scary developments.

Sure, it's shitty. But it's been owned by the rich for the purposes of manipulating public opinion on the owner's whim for a long time.

Katherine Graham and her family owned it previously. Good buddies with the likes of Kissenger and the Reagans, exposed Watergate, but also said "We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." to a room full of CIA spooks.

All the other major media outlets are the same, some wizard pulling the strings from behind a curtain showing you things they want you to see and suppressing the things they don't.

And corporate social media has gone the same way. Reddit, Facebook, Twitter... All pulled and prodded by algorithms to make sure you only see the truth they want you to.

The only difference between this and 1984 is that it's mostly corporations rather than the government. There's no truly independent and unbiased news to be had.

I cancelled my Prime subscription today, after 15 years. Just don't want to contribute to that man anymore. Fuckin sociopaths ruining the world.

They didn't realize Bezos thinks "Democracy Dies In Darkness" is a GOAL.

In all fairness, newspapers as Personal Propaganda Outlets for the very rich isn't something new and has a long tradition.

What's was new (but clearly we're beyond that by now) was the effort at many levels in the mid/later XX century and early XXIs one to pass them as genuine independent newspapers with actual journalistic integrity.

If it's owned or controlled by a single individual, a small number of individuals or a group of individuals all from the same social background (The Guardian being a good example of the latter, being entirelly controlled by a small section of the English upper middle class and upper class), its going to pretty much just be a disguised loudspeaker for their voice, "making opinions" to support that which furthers their interests.

I stared at this way too long trying to figure out why it said "whatever you say, Mr Beast"