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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   30532 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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The LA Times editorial board was going to endorse Kamala for president, but the owner prevented it (Archive). An Editorial Chief resigned in protest.

This situation made me remember a section of an article that Yarvin wrote a while back (it's about AI risk, but the section about using money for political power is what I keep coming back to in response to claims of money in politics)

What can Jeff Bezos do with his two hundred billion dollars? Well, it turns out, he can buy the Washington Post, the world’s second most important newspaper. That ain’t nothing. But… can he tell the Post what to say? As though he was W.R. Hearst? Lol.

Jeff Bezos does not really own the Post. He sponsors it, as if it was the Indy 500. If he sponsored the Indy 500, and decided the cars should have five wheels and a rocket exhaust, and also it should go farther and become the Indy 2500, they would tell him to go pound sand. If he started telling the news desk what to write and cover, like Hearst, or even like “Pinch” Sulzberger, they would laugh at him and quit. (Pinch’s heir, sadly, seems to have ceded that power to the NYT’s Slack—like many a weak monarch of a waning dynasty, letting his authority decay into an oligarchy. Hard to get it back, bro.)

Jeff Bezos could destroy the Post. Since journalism is redundant and the Post is only #2, this would have zero effect on the world. There is no way he can use the Post. Anyone talking about the “Bezos Blog” is either ignorant, or a fool, or a fraud.

The LA Times situation is still only a few days old, so more people could quit in protest in the days to come, vindicating Yarvin. But as of now, it seems that an owner can control their newspaper to a certain extent. Yes, telling the editorial board to not endorse someone is a different category of control than telling the news desk what and what not to cover, but Yarvin didn't make those caveats and I suspect if you asked him about this scenario when he wrote the article, he wouldn't distinguish it and would say journalists would resign in both scenarios. In fact, he even says, "There is no way he can use the Post", which is a very strong claim.

Potential Yarvin defenses and rebuttals

It's an endorsement, it doesn't really matter. That's why there haven't been mass resignations. If the owner told them what to cover, there would be mass resignations

Many individual news articles don't really matter or only barely push the needle, yet Yarvin still made the blanket statement. He didn't say "Bezos can use the Post for minor things, but for anything major, people would resign." He said, "There is no way he can use the Post"

It's the LA Times. If it was the Washington Post or the New York Times, they would resign

Possible, but now the argument is no longer that you can't use money for power. It's that you can't use money for power at the biggest, most prestigious organizations, but you can use it elsewhere. This is a much weaker claim. Plus, it's not like the LA Time is some middle of nowhere town's local rag.

This situation has changed the strength of my belief in that Yarvin argument about using money for political power. I will be going back to it less frequently.

Huh? I think this is entirely consistent with what Yarvin lays out. The owner of the LA Times was unable to make the paper print what he wants. He was only able to prevent it from printing what he doesn’t want. This can always be trivially accomplished by firing everyone and closing the paper, which Yarvin readily concedes that Bezos would be able to do with the Washington Post. Indeed, the editorial chief of the LA Times did in fact, “laugh at him and quit.”

I haven't see any indication that the owner of the LA Times wants Trump to be endorsed, only that he wanted the paper to be neutral on this, which he got. One person laughing at him and quitting is not what Yarvin was talking about. He was talking about the whole news room quitting, which didn't happen.

Reading the Yarvin quote, do you really think he is making a nuanced point of "Bezos can tell WaPo to not cover something and a few people might quit, but it will otherwise work. But, he can't tell them to cover something they don't want to cover. They'd all quit in that case"? No, he says pretty plainly, "there is no way he can use the Post" and what the LA Times owner did sure looks like him using the LA Times.

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