In the 1970s and 1980s, the right shrilly referred to the Washington Post as “Pravda on the Potomac”. This wasn’t just AM radio talk shows as that quip often laughingly showed up in (for example) national security discussions and would be referred to among journalists (maybe with laughs) and media spaces (like conferences). This was mainly posturing and, well, perhaps it was just the then outcast loonies (now, like MTG & MAGA, “the” core GOP) who actually believed this.
While once a joke, the Правда (Pravda or truth)) is that Jeff Bezos just took action to make “Pravda on the Potomac” a reality. However, rather than the Soviet Union’s (supposedly) left-wing Pravda, Bezos has restructured Washington Post Opinions to be aligned with the Pravda of Putin’s autocratic, oligachy, mafioso directed and supporting Pravda.
The TLDR of Bezos’ restructuring of Washington Post Opinion to libertarianism promotion.
- No longer any intent to “cover all views” as “the internet does that job”
- “Free market and personal liberties” will be the focus
Bezos, who once declared that he would stay out of editorial decision-making, has now put his $100s of billions foot down and mandated that a once serious bastion of independent, forceful journalism is now going to be a libertarian ideological mouthpiece. Bezos’ memo looks like something from the John Birch Society and Fred Koch couldn’t have written it better.
How long before the editorials start flowing defending tax cuts for the billionaires and cuts to Medicare (and other programs) are the best economic and society building choices since (utter falsehood) “trickle down” will create more wealth than the reduced social program benefits.
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Decades ago, especially during Carter and Reagan years, the right referred to the @washingtonpost.com as “Pravda on the Potomac” in an attack on its being left wing.
Not on my bingo card even a few years ago was that this nickname would actually be true — but in a fascist/authoritarian way.
— A Siegel (@asiegel.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T15:11:52.431Z
Democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it is being killed and dying in broad daylight — a murder aided, abetted, and cheered by Jeff Bezos.
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NOTE / UPDATE: I recommend taking a moment with Lowell Feld’s outrage and collections of some others’ outrage at Blue Virginia: WaPo Owner Jeff Bezos’ Attitude: “Freedom is what the boss tells you to write and think”.
So…of course the WaPo can have – and very much DOES have! – content from a conservative/”personal liberties and free markets” perspective. But at this point, the WaPo’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has put his thumb HEAVILY on the scale both FOR his own preferred political views and AGAINST those he doesn’t like (“viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others”). Well, ok, it’s his paper and he can do whatever he wants with it, but that doesn’t mean that any of us have to: a) subscribe to it; b) share content from it; c) treat it as anything but Jeff Bezos’ personal rag. Instead, what Democrats should be doing is sharing/amplifying independent media, pro-democracy media, etc., and NOT doing that with oligarch-owned, anti-democracy crap like what Bezos is doing with the WaPo…
