‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters; The Guardian, October 28, 2024

Lorenzo Tondo , The Guardian; ‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters

"More Washington Post staffers have stepped down and more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by Monday after the newspaper’s decision not to support Kamala Harris for president.

Editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts both resigned on Monday with forceful letters indicating their reasons.

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize just last week, wrote in his resignation letter. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”."

‘Anticipatory obedience’: newspapers’ refusal to endorse shines light on billionaire owners’ motives; The Guardian, October 26, 2024

Lois Beckett, The Guardian; ‘Anticipatory obedience’: newspapers’ refusal to endorse shines light on billionaire owners’ motives

"When two American billionaires blocked the newspapers they own from endorsing Kamala Harris this month, they tried to frame the decision as an act of civic responsibility.

“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” Patrick Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who owns the Los Angeles Times, said. He emphasised that though some might assume his family is “ultra-progressive”, he is a registered “independent”.

At the Washington Post, which reported that its billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, was behind the decision, publisher William Lewis described the retreat from making presidential endorsements as “a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds”.

Veteran journalists and media critics are using a very different phrase to describe Soon-Shiong’s and Bezos’s choice: they’re saying the two billionaires, among the richest men on the entire globe, are performing “anticipatory obedience” to Donald Trump.

Yes, “cowardice” has also been a popular way to describe the choice by the billionaire owners of two of the country’s major newspapers to not to risk angering Trump by allowing their papers to endorse his opponent.

But “anticipatory obedience” is more specific. The term comes from On Tyranny, the bestselling guide to authoritarianism by Timothy Snyder, a historian of eastern and central Europe. The phrase describes, in Snyder’s words, “the major lesson of the Nazi takeover, and what was supposed to be one of the major lessons of the twentieth century: don’t hand over the power you have before you have to. Don’t protect yourself too early.” It’s a way of describing what Europeans did wrong as totalitarians came to power: by “mentally and physically conceding, you’re already giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian”, Snyder explains."

Ex-WaPo Editor: This Is a Straight Bezos-Trump ‘Quid Pro Quo’; The Washington Post, October 27, 2024

 Lily Mae Lazarus , The Daily Beast; Ex-WaPo Editor: This Is a Straight Bezos-Trump ‘Quid Pro Quo’

"The Washington Post’s outgoing editor-at-large and longtime columnist has made explosive claims that its owner Jeff Bezos struck a deal with Donald Trump in order to kill the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Robert Kagan, who resigned from his position on Friday after more than two decades at the publication, told the Daily Beast that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazonfounder killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal."

The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling; The Bulwark, October 25, 2024

JONATHAN V. LAST , The Bulwark; The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling

"ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.

First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”

Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.

Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.

It’s not.

It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.

But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.

Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.

And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.

Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub."...

These guys can hear the music. They’ve seen the sides being chosen: Elon Musk and Peter Theil assembling with Trump’s gangster government in waiting. They see Mark Zuckerberg praising Trump as a “badass.” And now they see Bezos getting in line, too.

What’s remarkable is that Trump didn’t have to arrest Bezos to secure his compliance. Trump didn’t even have to win the election. Just the fact that he has an even-money chance to become president was threat enough.

Or maybe that’s not remarkable. One of Timothy Snyder’s rules for resisting authoritarians is that “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” People surrender preemptively much more often than you might expect.

Two weeks ago, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter wrote what might be the most prophetic essay of the year. They warned about “anticipatory obedience” in the media.

Seventeen days later, Bezos made his demonstration.

In case you needed reminding: The “guardrails” aren’t guardrails. They’re people.

And they’re already collapsing. Before a single state has been called."

Trump’s attacks on the Postal Service deserve sustained, red-alert coverage from the media; The Washington Post, August 15, 2020

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post

; Trump’s attacks on the Postal Service deserve sustained, red-alert coverage from the media
"But if journalists don’t keep the pressure on Postal Service problems, they will be abdicating their duty.

There’s very little that matters more than the Nov. 3 vote. Anything that threatens the integrity of the vote needs to be treated as one of the biggest stories out there — even if it’s not the sexiest."

On the ethics of documenting a pandemic; British Journal of Photography, April 9, 2020

 Hannah Abel-Hirsch, British Journal of Photography; On the ethics of documenting a pandemic

"How do you navigate the ethics of documenting a crisis where the best course of action is to stay home — what is the importance of photographing it versus the risk it may bring to subjects?

One of the fundamental aspects of democracy is press freedom. I am a journalist and filmmaker and I have a duty to consider how to ethically document the crisis. A month ago, in Italy, the only imagery circulating was that which depicted empty streets and people wearing masks. I felt part of the story was missing, and I took the time to examine how to cover it safely with the necessary protective gear, and to understand what would be the right time and location. The concern is always how you do it — the process — and how you tell the story."

Shepard Smith, Late of Fox News, Gives $500,000 to a Free Press Group; The New York Times, November 21, 2019

Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times; Shepard Smith, Late of Fox News, Gives $500,000 to a Free Press Group

"“Our belief a decade ago that the online revolution would liberate us now seems a bit premature, doesn’t it?” Mr. Smith said in his customary Mississippi lilt. “Autocrats have learned how to use those same online tools to shore up their power. They flood the world of information with garbage and lies, masquerading as news. There’s a phrase for that.”...

The Committee to Protect Journalists, founded in 1981, works to advance press freedoms, particularly in dictatorial and autocratic countries. In recent years, speakers at its gala have increasingly referred to Mr. Trump’s attacks on the press and the hostile atmosphere faced by American journalists.

On Thursday, the group presented its Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award to Zaffar Abbas, the editor of a daily Pakistani newspaper, Dawn. The other honorees were Patrícia Campos Mello, a journalist at a Brazilian publication, Folha de S. Paulo; Neha Dixit, a freelance investigative journalist in India; two Nicaraguan broadcast journalists, Lucía Pineda Ubau and Miguel Mora, who were imprisoned for 172 days on false charges; and Maxence Melo Mubyazi, a journalist in Tanzania."

OPINION: The Ethics in Journalism Act is designed to censor journalists; The Sentinel, Kennesaw State University, April 22, 2019

Sean Eikhoff, The Sentinel, Kennesaw State University; OPINION: The Ethics in Journalism Act is designed to censor journalists

"The Ethics in Journalism Act currently in the Georgia House of Representatives is a thinly veiled attempt to censor journalists. A government-created committee with the power to unilaterally suspend or probate journalists is a dangerous concept and was exactly the sort of institution the framers sought to avoid when establishing freedom of the press.

The bill, HB 734, is sponsored by six Republicans and would create a Journalism Ethics Board with nine members appointed by Steve Wrigley, the chancellor of the University of Georgia. This board would be tasked to create a process by which journalists “may be investigated and sanctioned for violating such canons of ethics for journalists to include, but not be limited to, loss or suspension of accreditation, probation, public reprimand and private reprimand.”

The bill is an attempt to violate journalists’ first amendment rights and leave the chance of government punishing journalists for reporting the truth."

A board to oversee Georgia journalists sounds like Orwellian fiction. The proposal is all too real.; The Washington Post, April 8, 2019

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post; A board to oversee Georgia journalists sounds like Orwellian fiction. The proposal is all too real.

"Granted, journalists are far from perfect, and their practices deserve to be held to reasonable standards. But there already is pretty good agreement about journalistic ethics, available for all to see.

Respectable news organizations have codes of ethics — many of them available to the public. The Society of Professional Journalists has a well-accepted code as well."

Time's 2018 'Person of the Year' is killed and imprisoned journalists; NBC News, Decemeber 11, 2018

Tim Stelloh, NBC News; Time's 2018 'Person of the Year' is killed and imprisoned journalists

""The Guardians."

That's what Time magazine is calling the journalists behind 2018's "Person of the Year," which was revealed exclusively Tuesday morning on "Today."

With a record number of reporters behind bars around the planet — the Committee to Protect Journalists documented 262 cases in 2017 — an avalanche of misinformation on social media and government officials from the United States to the Philippines dismissing critical, real reporting as "fake news," Time is spotlighting a handful of journalists who have one thing in common: They were targeted for their work.

For them, pursuing the truth has meant prison and harassment. In some cases, it has meant death."

If Trump is cornered, the judges he disdains may finally bring him down; The Guardian, November 24, 2018

Walter Shapiro, The Guardian; If Trump is cornered, the judges he disdains may finally bring him down

"Concepts like democracy, a free press, due process, an independent judiciary and the rule of law are lost on Trump. As far as his understanding goes, the constitution might just as well be carved in cuneiform characters on stone tablets."

The Legal Precedent That Could Protect Jim Acosta’s Credentials; The Atlantic, November 9, 2018

Scott Nover, The Atlantic; The Legal Precedent That Could Protect Jim Acosta’s Credentials

"The D.C. circuit court ruled in Sherrill’s favor in 1977. While the court did not demand that the Secret Service issue him a press credential, it did set forth a series of new, transparent steps to ensure that no reporter’s First Amendment rights were violated.

“Once the government creates the kind of forum that it has created, like the White House briefing room, it can’t selectively include or exclude people on the basis of ideology or viewpoint,” said Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

The new steps enunciated in the Sherrill decision to ensure that reporters’ First Amendment rights are not violated include the requirement to give the reporter notice and the right to rebut a formal written decision, which must accompany any revocation. “We further conclude that notice, opportunity to rebut, and a written decision are required because the denial of a pass potentially infringes upon First Amendment guarantees,” the court’s ruling states. “Such impairment of this interest cannot be permitted to occur in the absence of adequate procedural due process.”

“If the Secret Service makes this kind of determination that they’re going to no longer let someone have access, or limit access from the start, there should be a really good reason for that,” Michele Kimball, a media-law professor at George Washington University, said. “And if you are denied that access, there should be some sort of procedural due process for you, [so] that you can find out what happened. And it’s sort of that check to make sure that, again, it’s being handled evenhandedly.”"

Artist Fired For Trump Cartoons to Release Book Enemy of the People; Comic Book Resources, November 9, 2018

Brandon Zachary, Comic Book Resources; Artist Fired For Trump Cartoons to Release Book Enemy of the People

[Kip Currier: With his singular artistic style and rapier insights, Rob Rogers is truly one of America's great political cartoonists and satirists.

Rogers was treated abysmally by the owners and management of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was fired from the paper this year; see this Nov. 4 article in The Washington Post for more background.

It's good to see that his newest compilation Enemy of the People: A Cartoonists Journey will be available for purchase soon.]


"The Pulitzer Prize winner was a 25-year veteran of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before being unceremoniously fired earlier this year, purportedly because his cartoons were regularly critical of President Trump and his policies.

Titled Enemy of the People: A Cartoonists Journey, the 184-page collection will be released Dec. 11 through the publisher's IDW Limited imprint...

“Satire is the ultimate expression of free speech," Rogers said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "[It] reminds us that we live in a healthy democracy. But we are living in a time like no other in our country’s history, a time when the media is under attack, a time of extreme partisanship. We need satire and editorial cartoons more now than ever.”"

The world has a question for the White House: When do murders matter?; The Washington Post, October 19, 2018

Emily Rauhala, and Anton Troianovski, The Washington Post; The world has a question for the White House: When do murders matter?

[Kip Currier: The price of freedom of speech and a free press can be incredibly high. This was indelibly illuminated these past few weeks via the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whose last piece What the Arab world needs most is free expression was published this week in The Washington Post, as well as via subsequent ham-handed and obfuscatory cover-up tactics by the responsible "masterminds", perpetrators, accomplices, and apologists, both domestic and global.

It's equally important that we remember other fact-seekers who have suffered and continue to suffer injustice and death for seeking and reporting information: Panama Papers investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia who was killed last year in a bomb blast while investigating corruption in Malta; Viktoria Marinova who was reporting on corruption and was raped and killed this month in Bulgaria; Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo who were shedding light on the plight of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims and were recently sentenced to 7 years in prison for collecting and obtaining "confidential documents"; and myriad others.

Every day, and especially at times like these when the world is watching the aftermath of efforts to silence reporter and free expression advocate Jamal Khashoggi, while, unintentionally and paradoxically, elevating him to a worldwide audience, what our leaders say--and don't say--is of profound importance in communicating our most cherished values, and where our "lines in the sand" are on free speech, free and independent presses, truth, accountability, and the value of human life. 

Leaders must remember that we and all of the world are watching to see what is done and is not done in matters of human rights and the rule of law. We must continue to hold them responsible for their action and inaction. History and future generations will as well.]

   

"For nearly three weeks, the world has watched President Trump downplay the disappearance and apparent slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and waited for the most powerful man in the world to act. They are waiting still.

Trump’s inconsistent and cautious remarks about the case have renewed questions about U.S. credibility and complicated the global response, emboldening adversaries such as Russia and China and discouraging robust action by traditional allies, according to analysts and former U.S. officials.

“This is a drastic break from American practice,” said Vali R. Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It signals a very different foreign policy that does not hold governments accountable for things that are outside normal legal or ethical parameters.”

“In effect,” he added, “The U.S. is setting a new standard for itself” — and in so doing, may be setting a new standard for the world."