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What's astonishing to me about that WaPo editorial decision is how fucking tame that cartoon is. No offense to the artist, of course. But if WaPo isn't willing to publish an inoffensive cartoon of billionaires bending the knee to Trump, that says a _lot_ about where they draw the line.

(This is re: https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post)

@eloquence

>There will be people who say, “Hey, you work for a company and that company has the right to expect employees to adhere to what’s good for the company”. That’s true except we’re talking about news organizations that have public obligations and who are obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy. Owners of such press organizations are responsible for safeguarding that free press— and trying to get in the good graces of an autocrat-in-waiting will only result in undermining that free press.

Under capitalism, news organizations have no such "public obligations" and are absolutely not "obliged to nurture a free press in a democracy." They are doing what they are designed to do: Invent Reality (or, if you prefer, Manufacture Consent).

I honestly think that reading Inventing Reality, by Michael Parenti, should be a prerequisite to working in journalism:

https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-inventing-reality-the-politics-of-the-mass-media-1986-st.-martins-press_202012

@aspensmonster

For sure; there was always a line. Bezos just moved it further towards naked and obvious alignment with his own interests -- which is perhaps the inevitable trajectory of a for-profit press.