Tax the ultra rich back to earth
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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I'll be honest, the first few words of the title had me thinking this was going to be about murder. I get it now, but I still think it's a strange use of the word kill.
Extremely common term in this industry. "Killing" a story means shelving it. You'd be very familiar with the term if you followed some of trump's many criminal trials. He famously colluded with the person that ran a prominent supermarket tabloid paper in America to "catch and kill" any story about him that was embarrassing and potentially harmful.
Was an important part of the trial where he defrauded a porn star, who he had to bribe with $130,000 for her to have unprotected sex with him while his third wife was at home after just giving birth to his 5th child with 3 different women (at least one divorce prior in some part due to trump violently beating his wife). After not paying her for a long time and sensing the liability he committed multiple frauds with his market to get her a check to try to secure her silence close to the first election.
My initial reaction was to the specific past tense use of "killed". My brain just immediately thought of ways to finish that sentence that would be more entertaining than actual title. For example : Jeff Bezos killed by Orca in Dramatic Yacht sinking.
Can some explain this to a non American? Why care about who a newspaper endorses? Why shouldn't a newspaper even be allowed to endorse anyone - should they at least pretend to be independent journalists? The whole thing is truly baffling to me, and I don't remember any such thing from past years.
Media is supposed to be objective, endorsements are a long standing tradition here in the US, ostensibly and hopefully based on a non-partisan analysis of the candidates' policy positions, record and overall character.
Having the choice between an aspiring fascist dictator and convicted felon versus the sitting Vice-President and the decision being “neither” is indeed shocking and disappointing. The Post used to have massive credibility, especially on politics. This is an embarrassment.
I agree with what you say. However, given that indeed journalists should in theory be objective, I would expect that newspapers would give the analysis of policies, positions, etc of the candidates. I would not, however, expect the newspapers to connect the dots and draw the conclusions for the audience, but rather the audience should do it for themselves. This is why the whole endorsement things seems a bit strange to me.
The intent of an endorsement is “on this basis we recommend candidate X” - it's an argument not a dictate but I understand your point.
A quick civics explainer for you:
Journalism is one of the checks and balances on a democratic system - IE the 'Fourth Estate'. For a healthy system, we NEED them to hold the rich and powerful to account.
Yet somehow the rich and powerful have managed to convince a lot of people that journalistic independence means treating both sides the same. IT IS NOT. True independence is having the freedom to speak honestly about the most important issues of the day.
That means not only is it important but imperative to make an endorsement and sound the alarms when a corrupt unhinged disconnected traitor of a billionaire has a real chance of taking command again and running democracy into the ground.
The "somehow" in your statement, unfortunately, is that the rich bought all of the media and Regan killed the fairness doctrine in the late 80s.
Do newspapers in your country not publish opinion columns or editorials?
They do, but they don't practically tell you to go vote for XYZ.
If you actually care to understand, go back and read the past endorsements from 2016 and 2020 - read those former articles where the paper did not endorse trump in those elections. You'll see how they present their position and then you can decide if it's a measured, careful statement of objective fact (which, objectively, trump is unqualified, unfit and literally a convicted criminal many times over) or something that feels very biased and presents an unfounded argument to you.
You could have done that, you can do that now, I don't think you will though... I think you're begging the question and not actually interested in the answer.
And to your statement of "should the paper even be allowed to endorse?" I'm genuinely curious if you're living in a dictatorship right now, because in theory, we have a free press in America. So when you say "allowed" who/what would stop them?
Just canceled my subscription.
Some courage left and something well started by a (now former) subscriber:
Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, a member of the paper’s opinions section, resigned following the decision, multiple news outlets reported. More than 10,000 reader comments were posted on Lewis’ article, many of them blasting the Post for its decision and saying they were canceling their subscriptions. “The most consequential election in our country, a choice between Fascism and Democracy, and you sit out? Cowards. Unethical, fearful cowards,” wrote one comment. “Oh, and by the way, I’m canceling my subscription, because you are putting business ahead of ethics and morals.”