Jeff Bezos Will not Tolerate Dissent at Washington Post

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Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has shaken up his newspaper’s opinion section, my friend (and podcast guest) Ben Mullin reported. The Amazon founder demanded that his side hustle publish commentary that pushes “personal liberties and free markets”. Dissent will not bed tolerated. David Shipley, who ran the opinion section, has left the newspaper in response.

While advocacy of “personal liberties and free markets” rather appeals to my personal politics, and newspapers are entitled to have an editorial perspective, the point of opinion pages is surely to publish a variety of viewpoints. The Telegraph here in the UK is clearly a conservative newspaper and doesn’t generally feature lefty opinion writers on its pages. However, it does publish a spectrum of views from the right. The Guardian takes a similar approach on the left.

We all like the comfort of our echo chambers and we can build them through newsletters, podcasts and some TV or radio. For national institutions to confine their opinion output to narrow boundaries does a disservice to their readers. It is also a huge strategic error.

Jeff Bezos Making a Huge Mistake With Washington Post

One of the key things that maintains the value of legacy institutions like the WaPo is that they bring together a collection of news and views in one place. If people are interested in “personal liberties and free markets” they can already get that kind of content from all sorts of newsletters and podcasts. They do not particularly need that repeated on the pages of WaPo.

If someone is not inclined towards that kind of viewpoint, they have another reason to cancel their subscription. Frankly, if you are wishing to change hearts and minds it is far more politically savvy to publish writers with all sorts of views. You are more likely to draw in a wider variety of people who may then stumble open something different and have their minds changed, even if just a little bit.

On top of all this, newspapers already have leader columns in which they provide an institutional view. They do not need every single columnist to do the same.

Newspaper and TV news’s curatorial capabilities are one of the few things keeping them alive. They give that up at their peril.