
Jeff Bezos Escapes Scrutiny from His Own Paper–and Its Rivals - blackbagboys
http://fair.org/home/worlds-richest-person-escapes-scrutiny-from-his-own-paper-and-its-rivals/
======
jholman
Okay, what the hell. I googled "washington post amazon" and immediately found
TWO news articles from the last 3 days, both critical of Amazon.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/birkenstock-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/birkenstock-
ceo-accuses-amazon-of-modern-day-
piracy/2017/07/25/24fa7644-7086-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-
to...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-too-
big/2017/07/28/ff38b9ca-722e-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html)

Am I missing something, or is TFA just straightforwardly wrong, to an
embarrassing degree?

~~~
sedachv
Here is an HN comment from jawns on one of the WP articles that tries to
explain this:

"This reverse submarine -- a critique of Amazon published by Jeff Bezos' paper
-- tries to give what appears to be a biased news source a patina of unbiased
objectivity by running what appears to be a piece that's critical of the thing
it's thought to be biased toward."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14877216#14878179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14877216#14878179)

Whether this is true or not actually does not matter as long as the conflict
of interest is there.

~~~
jbooth
So, if the WaPo doesn't criticize Bezos, it's because they're owned by him,
but if they do, it's because of a 'reverse submarine'?

Quite the box they're in there.

Let me throw occam's razor out there -- unless Bezos and/or Amazon PR people
leaned on the WaPo to write this story, then it's exactly what it looks like,
a random writer with a critical thought piece about Amazon.

~~~
mevile
It bugs me that without evidence sedevach and the commentator he linked to
just present something speculative as a certainty. HN comments just jump right
into full throttle conspiracy theories and receive hundreds of upvotes. It's
not like at the edges of the discussion and downvoted. These uncritical
comments are frequently floating at the top of what people are reading.

If you've got evidence of Washington Post writers trampling their journalistic
credentials and planting favorable stories for Bezos you should share that
along with your accusations otherwise you should maybe hedge your claims a
bit. Eh? Maybe go look up the authors for these pieces on twitter, they're
often there, and just go ahead and accuse them right there where they can see
it. Such a shameful thing to do in my opinion, and so far fetched.

~~~
jbooth
Well, there's an argument to be made that captains of industry shouldn't own
newspapers, full stop. That argument can be made without evidence, and there's
some credence to it.

~~~
curun1r
The problem with that argument is that newspapers basically aren't profitable
anymore, so we have to choose between "news" outlets that skimp on all
journalism costs and simply parrot stories from other sources, real news
outlets owned by those captains of industry who are willing to run them at a
loss for what amounts to vanity purposes, and bankrupt/soon-to-be-bankrupt new
outlets with little-to-no future.

When someone comes up with a profitable model that can support real,
independent journalism, perhaps we can start making that argument. Personally,
if I compare quality journalism with a blind spot for Bezos, neo-nazi/alt-
right crackpot "news" sites and small-town Romanians making up fake news to go
viral on Facebook, I'm inclined to think that what little bias WaPo has isn't
really that big of a problem.

------
didibus
The article literally says that the Post was not less critical and
scrutinizing of Amazon then other news paper, falling right in the middle.

Therefore, I have to conclude the title is clickbait. And this makes me feel
less confident that FAIR has a valid point in saying Amazon appears to evade
scrutiny, and more likely to believe there's nothing scrupulous to report
about Amazon, except for FAIR wanting to make the headlines.

------
pdog
It's not just Amazon. Facebook and Google also want to avoid any criticism
that suggests they should be regulated as utilities.

The #1 marketplace, #1 social network, and #1 search engine companies all lend
themselves to natural monopoly, much like the oil and railroad companies at
the beginning of the twentieth century.

~~~
x0x0
It will be kind of amazing to watch the complaining as people who, by
consensus, refuse to pay for news and discuss news on a site that helps them
evade paying for news, then complain about what the news organizations they
don't pay for do or don't do. Because apparently America is owed robust news
organizations that act in the public interest and survive off bread and water.
The parallels to open source software and maintainers will be ignored.

~~~
costcopizza
This was probably (wrongly) downvoted because it's hitting too close to home.

Nearly every HN post with a paywall has comments boycotting or denouncing said
paywall, how else do you expect them to survive?

~~~
x0x0
I expect people who want robust investigations of what half trillion dollar
companies are doing to pay for news, not expect reporters to devote say 1/4 of
a year to an investigation at a cost of probably $100k+ (their salary,
expenses, editors, travel, etc) in exchange for a couple hundred thousand
pageviews with $0.1cpm ads. Though spending $100k to make $50 _is_ actually
supported by the valley =P ... but it doesn't lead to a robust public press.

~~~
danielam
It's not that simple. The amount of money it takes to run a newspaper exceeds
the amount it could easily charge readers, at least in the conventional way in
which newspapers have done. This has always been the case (a good read is
Hillaire Belloc's "The Free Press").

------
yalogin
Is this a statement about WShington Post or the other papers or all the papers
together?

Out of curiosity, is there anything critical to be written about Bezos
specifically?

------
robbrown451
I don't understand the title and its implications. Why is it relevant that
Bezos owns the Washington Post, if the Post is no more guilty of bias than any
other paper?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> no more guilty of bias than any other paper

When 99% of the press beats up on a presidential candidate, and he still wins,
people may smell a rat.

2016 was a fun year.

~~~
elefanten
The rat that smells here is one making ridiculous and patently absurd
declarative statements about extremely recent history.

~~~
starik36
I am not sure the poster from parent is all that wrong. The mainstream media
(CNN , MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, HuffPo) straight up shilled for HRC during the
election. CNN even provided HRC with questions for the debates.

------
acalderaro
Figuring out whether or not Bezos is doing behind-the-scenes censorship of his
own media outlet ultimately depends on the internal organizational structure
of WaPo and Amazon.

If the most senior leader of WaPo - the person in charge of greenlighting or
pulling articles that get published - may be fired/terminated/reassigned by
Bezos, or someone who Bezos oversees, then there is a conflict of interest
that can't be ignored, and will always be inherent within the organizations
until this is remedied.

Now, just because there's a conflict of interest does not mean that shady
reporting is occurring. But, we cannot definitively say that WaPo is unbiased
towards Amazon, unless there is something about the internal controls that
would separate Bezos from the ultimate decision-making.

------
Twirrim
Assuming we take the article at face value.. how does coverage compare to any
other major company?

------
losteverything
I used to listen to FAIRs radio show. They clued me in to the sides of
journalism i never knew existed.

Nowadays though, wapo and other are just not as relevant.

For example, HN has taught me via comments to expect counterfeit electronics
on Amazon..

FAIR is still a net positive IMO

------
mtgx
I also wish that WashPost would disclose that its owner has contracts with the
CIA, whenever it writes a story on the CIA (especially a positive one).
Readers should know that there may be a pro-CIA bias in the story and a
conflict of interest when publishing the story.

------
jgalt212
WaPo shouldn't cover Bezos or Amazon at all.

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SubiculumCode
I have been enjoying the investigative journalism of WaPost; I am disappointed
to learn that it is so closely affiliated to Amazon, an economic powerhouse
(e.g. commanding about 50% of online sales, and their AWS).

~~~
noobermin
There is a need for non-corporate owned media. There do exist independent
media voices, but they often have ideological leanings.

~~~
tomcam
Nothing stopping you. I pay for journalism from Michael Yon, The Guardian,
Rebel Media, and others.

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smrtinsert
FAIR is a noted hard right wing organization.

~~~
cvsh
You're thinking of the other FAIR: Federation for American Immigration Reform.

