Insightful column, Mr. Inskeep. I respect the spirit of this so very much. I am hopeful that someday we have newspaper owners who understand the responsibility of this privilege.
WaPo readers have been decrying the content of the Post for quite some time. Bezos' stepping in at the 11th hour to withhold the endorsement of Harris was the last straw - not just a temper tantrum over a single issue. I have been a subscriber for years and can affirm that the vibe of the paper is getting more right wing. It's not the newspaper of Woodward and Bernstein, not any more. Democracy is dying in the daylight.
Well said. I came close to hitting the cancel button but was talked out of it by one of my fellow News Media Guild members. Your thoughtful essay helps assure me I made the right decision. Plus, I’d miss Alexandria Petri’s column a whole lot.
Baloney. A hard-hitting expose on Elon Musk is extremely far from a hard-hitting expose on, say, Jeff Bezos. What the Post did was lie about Bezos’s role in killing the already written endorsement and then when the lies weren’t holding water they gave Bezos a platform in which to defend his bad decision. I never subscribed to the Post (or any other paper) to support journalists, I did it because I value credible news and wanted to have access to it. And we have been clearly shown that credibility is not a thing we can reliably expect from the Washington Post.
I also am maintaining my subscriptions to WaPo, NYTimes, the Atlantic, the Guardian and a wonderful assortment of Substack subscriptions. I believe we have to continue to support those who work hard to keep us informed.
Canceling your Wapo subscription is the easy part, because there are so many more credible sources out there that don't have owners who want to do business with fascists. The hard part would be sacrificing your Amazon membership to really hurt the billionaire owner on his wallet. I choose to do that instead.
I did, until a couple of months ago, subscribe to the Post in paper form, which was well worth it to me -- I liked having it with me sometimes, my daughter kept the annual cookie section, and other stuff like that. I stopped because it had crossed into the well-over-a-grand-a-year range -- WOW -- and I moved to online only, which is very defintely what Mr. Inskeep is doing at the prices he quotes. The Post no longer chooses to be the paper you have tucked under your arm to read as you run between stuff.
And I wonder how much that has to do with what happened this week? I mean I get that kidz 2day read on their phones, and yet, the move to effectively online-only suggests something about the local paper, which is also a national paper, choosing only to be a national paper. That seems to me to come with a change in the responsibility and credibility of the paper, and the ways it can be both powerful and vulnerable.
It is interesting to contrast with NPR's model of national news carried by local stations. It almost seems like the Post could just be a syndicator of news.
Insightful column, Mr. Inskeep. I respect the spirit of this so very much. I am hopeful that someday we have newspaper owners who understand the responsibility of this privilege.
Thank you, Steve, for your thoughtful, hopeful column.
WaPo readers have been decrying the content of the Post for quite some time. Bezos' stepping in at the 11th hour to withhold the endorsement of Harris was the last straw - not just a temper tantrum over a single issue. I have been a subscriber for years and can affirm that the vibe of the paper is getting more right wing. It's not the newspaper of Woodward and Bernstein, not any more. Democracy is dying in the daylight.
Well said. I came close to hitting the cancel button but was talked out of it by one of my fellow News Media Guild members. Your thoughtful essay helps assure me I made the right decision. Plus, I’d miss Alexandria Petri’s column a whole lot.
Baloney. A hard-hitting expose on Elon Musk is extremely far from a hard-hitting expose on, say, Jeff Bezos. What the Post did was lie about Bezos’s role in killing the already written endorsement and then when the lies weren’t holding water they gave Bezos a platform in which to defend his bad decision. I never subscribed to the Post (or any other paper) to support journalists, I did it because I value credible news and wanted to have access to it. And we have been clearly shown that credibility is not a thing we can reliably expect from the Washington Post.
Sensible and thoughtful.
Thank you Steve for a great, thoughtful post.
I also am maintaining my subscriptions to WaPo, NYTimes, the Atlantic, the Guardian and a wonderful assortment of Substack subscriptions. I believe we have to continue to support those who work hard to keep us informed.
Canceling your Wapo subscription is the easy part, because there are so many more credible sources out there that don't have owners who want to do business with fascists. The hard part would be sacrificing your Amazon membership to really hurt the billionaire owner on his wallet. I choose to do that instead.
How do you have time to write books, a newsletter, work a full time job, and read all of those newspapers!?!
I did, until a couple of months ago, subscribe to the Post in paper form, which was well worth it to me -- I liked having it with me sometimes, my daughter kept the annual cookie section, and other stuff like that. I stopped because it had crossed into the well-over-a-grand-a-year range -- WOW -- and I moved to online only, which is very defintely what Mr. Inskeep is doing at the prices he quotes. The Post no longer chooses to be the paper you have tucked under your arm to read as you run between stuff.
And I wonder how much that has to do with what happened this week? I mean I get that kidz 2day read on their phones, and yet, the move to effectively online-only suggests something about the local paper, which is also a national paper, choosing only to be a national paper. That seems to me to come with a change in the responsibility and credibility of the paper, and the ways it can be both powerful and vulnerable.
It is interesting to contrast with NPR's model of national news carried by local stations. It almost seems like the Post could just be a syndicator of news.