I’M LAMENTING A LOT ABOUT JEFF BEZOS’ WASHINGTON POST
Photo by Luis Cortés on Unsplash
First it was the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate, then came rejection of a great editorial cartoon, then the departures of favorite writers and columnists . . .
Those episodes were followed by the anouncement of Bezos-owned Washington Post’s new slogan, “Riveting Storytelling for all of America.” Reportedly it’s just a new ‘mission statement’ and not meant to replace the old mantra.
Which is, of course, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
I am struggling with all this. To be truthful, I thought that “Democracy dies in darkness” had been the Post mantra forever; only now am I learning it dates back just to the darkness of the pandemic. So it is hardly as archivally significant as the New York Times’ famous slogan,“All the News That’s Fit to Print,” which has been around for more than a century.
Riveting storytelling is great. Newspapers, though, used to be run (and written) by those who, above all else, sought the light of truth. Most of the writers and reporters I know, including some who have been with the Post, the Times and other still-surviving newspapers for years, simply want to find and report the truth. Without it, how does democracy live?
I’m not canceling my online Post subscription, or the print edition of my beloved New York Times. (Yes, I’m one of that dying breed of readers of old-fashioned newspapers.) But if accountability being thrown to the wind, misinformation going unchecked, lies and crimes going unpunished and oligarchs moving into the White House isn’t darkness, I don’t know what is.
Here’s to serious, edited and fact-checked journalism wherever light — and truth — can be found; may it live long and prosper.
And may democracy somehow manage not to die.
This first appeared on my new Substack page, The Optimistic Eye, https://franjohns.substack.com/ where I post every Friday, mostly mildly political observations & occasionally reposted here.