the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Jeff Bezos the owner of The Washington Post , founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon penned an editorial admitting the mainstream media lack of credibility and the fact that so few people believe them anymore .
The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media
A note from our owner.
Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.
Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.
I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.
When it comes to the appearance of conflict, I am not an ideal owner of The Post. Every day, somewhere, some Amazon executive or Blue Origin executive or someone from the other philanthropies and companies I own or invest in is meeting with government officials. I once wrote that The Post is a “complexifier” for me. It is, but it turns out I’m also a complexifier for The Post.
You can see my wealth and business interests as a bulwark against intimidation, or you can see them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own principles can tip the balance from one to the other. I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled, and I believe my track record as owner of The Post since 2013 backs this up. You are of course free to make your own determination, but I challenge you to find one instance in those 11 years where I have prevailed upon anyone at The Post in favor of my own interests. It hasn’t happened.
Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)
While I do not andwill not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it. I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor. Many of the finest journalists you’ll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.
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Jeff is right…
Podcasts and X
MSM is dead
The public at large finally came to the realization that news media is just political propaganda for the political parties they are each affiliated with, and almost all of them are Democrats. Add to that the so-called entertainment shows.
No one buys the Ridgewood News anymore, or the record, we only received the little town rag newspaper, and I use that to start a fire. You get more news and real news from the blog than anywhere else and top officials in Ridgewood can’t stand it because they can’t control the blog. It burns their ass. Don’t let it fool you. Believe me, I know.
Thank God, we got Trump back in. Can you imagine if the Obama crew got it back in because you know he was behind all that. That would be scary for the country. And yet you talk to these kids that are 25 and younger they have no idea what the hell is going on in the world? They are so brainwashed think about a good majority of their teachers. They’re very young and most of them were push through school during Covid remember, there was a shortage of teachers and nurses. Yes, they haven’t learned what the adults forgot. Think about that.
Trump is the only president in my lifetime that isn’t part of the establishment. He fights for the common man. He’s cares about protecting what we have left of our culture and respects our military and blue collar workers who make our country great. These people in town want to push the far left agenda just like the Rachel Maddows and Joy Reeds of the world. They want to radicalize innocent children with CRT and this LGBTQ+ agenda that was adopted under the Biden regime. Local politicians promoting this agenda need to be held accountable. The flag needs to be banned forever. its a sick and twisted agenda we all know it. Aside from that, Trump gonna close the border from the tens of millions of illegals who entered the country under sleepy Joe and commie Kamala. The cartels will be put out of business. ICE will round up the tens of thousands of illegal immigrant criminals and send them back to where they come from. Were gonna drill and lower the cost of energy and start producing more goods in the USA and promote a strong vibrant economy. Trumps gonna end the War between Russia and Ukraine and bring peace to in the middle east. Everything Joe Biden every touched went to sh it. We all know it. They tried to take Trump out 2X. God has a plan for Trump, that why he was protected and still is. People running the town, um we see what your doing to these kids and breaking our society. People will stand up and defend what they love.
Trump! The only outsider who hires insiders!
Imagine being an adult and legitimately believing any of this.
fake news has been with us a long time, the difference is now its all fake
Fake news media.
Mainstream media taking a huge hit in viewership. The democrats have largely controlled the media in our country for the last 10-20 years. It amazing how much control they had on the average American in 2020. Most people bought that crap they were selling. Take this, dont do this, do that. They treated us like animals. Masking and vaxing everything, democratic governors locking down our elderly family members in nursing homes, and the Biden regime and the media calling us white supremes for questionning these draconian measures during the lockdowns and violent summer of love in 2020. The constant gaslighting. The talking heads carrying water like Rachel Maddow, Dom Lemon, Joy Reed to name a few. I dont think anyone over here in Ridgewood is waking up anytime soon though. Most of the other side is very comfortable and priviledged, and despite a great Trump economy world peace close borders and protecting what we have left of our culture, the far left would rather cry orange man bad
keep censoring me. funny cause thats what the democrats do. You must be a democrat who ever is controlling this forum.
the censor went out to dinner last night lol , all approved
good cause these people need the truth
the censor was out censoring inconvenient tiny hat comments
????
Lets go Brandon
It’s a free country. A little civil discourse can go along way. Thats why George Jackson brought me back to life. I am in wonderland of here in Ridgewood. So beautiful. I love the people. Such great people. Most of them are white but they’ve been taught to actually hate themselves which I find awesome because there is plenty of room for improvement. Thats why they are in the wonderland. For a change and a different perspective to life that they cherish and hold dear. So, as a fellow local to the community I just want to say thank you to all the strong democratic women in town and a few men too thank you so much for the support. lets go brandy. its time to go /
This is beautiful, actually. And now I every time I think about disarticulating all of those bones in their skulls, I’ll have to remind myself that no matter how much I hate them, they probably hate themselves more.
no one hates you more than you hate yourself , your simply not worth hating