27 October 2024

WaPo! THE DARKNESS DESCENDS

 

Woodward and Bernstein Slam Jeff Bezos for Canceled Kamala Harris  Endorsement: 'Surprising and Disappointing'

Woodward and Bernstein Slam Jeff Bezos for Canceled Kamala Harris Endorsement: 'Surprising

Ex-WaPo Editor: 
This Is a Straight Bezos-Trump ‘Quid Pro Quo’

DIRTY DEAL

Robert Kagan tells the Daily Beast that Donald Trump’s meeting with Blue Origin executives the day its founder Jeff Bezos killed his paper’s Kamala Harris endorsement is proof of a backroom deal.


Lily Mae Lazarus Journalist
Updated Oct. 26 2024 4:29PM EDT / Published Oct. 26 2024 3:54PM EDT


“We now know what Bezos’ intention was, therefore we now know why he hired Will Lewis,” he continued. “We were the ones who were naive in thinking that there was anything else going on here.”
Lewis, who is the newspaper’s publisher, claimed that the Post’s last minute nixing of its endorsement had nothing to do with its owner, and was instead because “I do not believe in presidential endorsements.” 
  • His claim contradicts reports from sources that Lewis “fought tooth and nail” to keep the endorsement.
According to Kagan, “all the facts” lead in the direction of Bezos attempting to transform the Post into something akin to The Wall Street Journal, a center right “anti-anti-Trump editorial slant,” with Lewis by his side.
“Some journalists will stick around for that. Some will leave. If they leave, they can be replaced,” he said.
Will Lewis must go. The Washington Post publisher's actions cast doubt on  his newsroom's credibility. | Press Watch

Lewis has come under growing scrutiny in recent weeks after reports that he sought to discourage The Post from covering a British civil case regarding a phone-hacking scheme involving Rupert Murdoch’s media company, where he once worked. Lewis is not a defendant in the case and has denied wrongdoing. He has also denied trying to interfere with Post coverage.

  • On Friday, a British editor who had been tapped by Lewis to take charge of The Post’s core newsroom later this year decided to withdraw
  • The move followed coverage in The Post and elsewhere examining past newsgathering practices by the two men, who had previously worked together in Britain.

Before venturing into the world of start-ups, Lewis led much larger companies, including the Wall Street Journal as its publisher and CEO for six years. 


He previously worked as a top executive with Murdoch’s News Corp. and as a journalist for multiple British publications, including the Telegraph and the Financial Times.


New 'Washington Post' CEO accused of Murdoch tabloid hacking cover-up


Cover-Ups, Secrets, Lies': Washington Post CEO Will Lewis' Thirst for Power


The News Movement specializes in what it describes as “creative storytelling” for youthful consumers on social media. (Bebeto Matthews/AP)


Lewis founded the News Movement in 2020 with other investors — including Breen — who together put up $15 million in capital, company executives have said. The company began operations with a handful of employees in London and says it has since expanded to about 50 staffers.

Early last year, the News Movement acquired the Recount, a New York-based digital news start-up that produces short videos for Gen Z audiences, in a deal for an undisclosed amount of equity.

  • While Lewis ran the News Movement, it forged a partnership with the Associated Press, where he serves on the board of directors, alongside other news executives. The News Movement also took on additional investors, including a fund controlled by a member of the royal family of Qatar, a gas-rich Persian Gulf country.

Will Lewis Introduces Himself to The Washington Post: “We're Not in a Place  That We Want to Be” | Vanity Fair
Top stories
WaPo editor-at-large resigns after Jeff Bezos rumored to be behind  Dem-leaning outlet refusal to endorse Kamala | The Post Millennial |  thepostmillennial.com


Robert Kagan was furious the paper would not endorse Kamala Harris for US president

25 Oct, 2024 23:05
Home World News

Victoria Nuland’s husband quits WaPo after Bezos decision


Victoria Nuland’s husband quits WaPo after Bezos decision











The Washington Post’s editor-at-large Robert Kagan has resigned in protest after the newspaper, owned by Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, decided to forego a presidential endorsement for the first time since 1988.


  • Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland, the former senior State Department official who was directly involved in the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine. 
  • A self-described neoconservative, Kagan went from being a foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008 to joining the Democrats in 2016 and endorsing Hillary Clinton.
On Friday, he confirmed to NPR and Fox News that he'd quit the Post because the paper refused to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presidential nominee, in her race against Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump.
According to NPR, the text of the Harris endorsement had been drafted earlier this month, but the paper’s management scrapped it after a review by Bezos, who has owned the Post since 2013. In its response, the editorial board expressed that it was “shocked” and was overwhelmingly negative, the public broadcaster claimed.

While Kagan’s has been the only resignation so far, WaPo came under a torrent of criticism for Bezos’ decision. Susan Rice, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obamadenounced the move as “the most hypocritical, chicken sh*t move from a publication that is supposed to hold people in power to account.” 


“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty,” Marty Baron, the Post’s executive editor during the Trump presidency, told NPR in a statement, calling the non-endorsement of Harris “a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” 

Under Baron, the Post won several Pulitzer prizes for stories about the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory and blaming Trump for the 2021 election-related riot at the US Capitol.

Kagan has argued that Trump would be a dangerous dictator and has advised the current President Joe Biden to respect, love and learn from ‘the Blob’ of the Washington establishment. He is also known for co-authoring the 1996 manifesto ‘Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy’, advocating for the US to become a “benevolent global hegemony.” His co-author, fellow neoconservative Bill Kristol, also joined the Democrats in 2016 and became an outspoken Trump critic.

The Washington Post’s move comes just days after the Los Angeles Times likewise announced it would not endorse Harris, after 16 years of backing Democrats. 
  • The head of editorials, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest of the decision she said made the paper “look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” having spent eight years “railing against” Trump.

CNN's Erin Burnett speaks with ex-Washington Post editor-at-large Robert Kagan, who resigned from the paper after publisher Will Lewis ...
CNN · 1 day ago
The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World, with Robert Kagan |  Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

OCT 22, 2024  Video

Ethical Leadership in International Affairs

In this message for Global Ethics Day 2024, Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal shares his thoughts on ethical leadership and the role that ethics must play ...

Washington Post Editor Resigns After Paper's Non-Endorsement of Harris

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