I think the question is ask you back, is, too little, to late, for what?
Bezos could afford to keep the Post afloat for a long time with zero subscribers, I expect. So if we exclude actually making money, what purpose did he have in mind when he bought it? Personal semaphore, perhaps?
As we've seen with several other techlords, I think whatever his personal politics, he wants to at least not be on the bad side of whoever is in power, if not actively on their good side.
Bezos is making a business decision. May be trying to claw back some facade of legitimacy too so that the WAPO can continue the Long March. Meantime, DC merchants still need something to wrap fish in.
Bezos isn’t shifting The Washington Post toward conservatism. He’s slowing its collapse long enough to sell ad space for another few years. Murdoch built Fox as a reactionary insurgency—it was meant to capture a neglected audience. WaPo, by contrast, was the establishment narrative. If legacy media has lost legitimacy, its pivot is irrelevant—it’s just a question of how long it takes to hit the ground.
The real question isn’t whether there’s enough trust left in legacy media for this shift to work. It’s whether Bezos actually needs trust at all. Maybe he’s just stalling the inevitable while reshuffling the same deck. If the crowd is moving rightward, maybe WaPo doesn’t need to ‘become conservative’—maybe it just needs to look conservative enough to slow the loss of readership while continuing to serve the same function.
I think the question is ask you back, is, too little, to late, for what?
Bezos could afford to keep the Post afloat for a long time with zero subscribers, I expect. So if we exclude actually making money, what purpose did he have in mind when he bought it? Personal semaphore, perhaps?
As we've seen with several other techlords, I think whatever his personal politics, he wants to at least not be on the bad side of whoever is in power, if not actively on their good side.
Bezos is making a business decision. May be trying to claw back some facade of legitimacy too so that the WAPO can continue the Long March. Meantime, DC merchants still need something to wrap fish in.
Bezos isn’t shifting The Washington Post toward conservatism. He’s slowing its collapse long enough to sell ad space for another few years. Murdoch built Fox as a reactionary insurgency—it was meant to capture a neglected audience. WaPo, by contrast, was the establishment narrative. If legacy media has lost legitimacy, its pivot is irrelevant—it’s just a question of how long it takes to hit the ground.
The real question isn’t whether there’s enough trust left in legacy media for this shift to work. It’s whether Bezos actually needs trust at all. Maybe he’s just stalling the inevitable while reshuffling the same deck. If the crowd is moving rightward, maybe WaPo doesn’t need to ‘become conservative’—maybe it just needs to look conservative enough to slow the loss of readership while continuing to serve the same function.
Where's my popcorn? 😈