Bezos Tops Musk as World's Stupidest Man
Publisher's stupidity accelerates rise of alternative media such as The Fucking News
A lot has been said wisely and courageously about Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’s revamp, or unvamp, of the iconic newspaper’s opinion section. Much has come from veterans of the paper and much, appropriately, has focused on the journalism issues at stake.
Opinion journalism is journalism, with its own norms and protocols and even, in theory, fact-checking.
And the medieval defenestration of the Washington Post’s integrity leaves precious few journalistic redoubts of integrity standing, such as the New York Times, The Fucking News, and the Christian Science Monitor.
I do have some thoughts on the journalism, but my primary focus here — since this is The Fucking News — is to demonstrate how someone as rich and powerful and (presumptively) smart as Bezos can be so fucking dumb.
Dumber, in fact — for this brief shining moment anyway — than even Elon Musk, who has so much money he was too stupid to avoid announcing to the world that he had set a trap for workers who don’t answer emails…thereby giving those workers time to see his announcement and avoid his trap.
If you haven’t seen it, here’s what Bezos said yesterday:
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
Jeff
There’s a lot of dumbness here that may not be obvious in the blinding dumbness of the overall change he’s announcing (and the violence it represents against the fundamental precepts of ethical journalism). Let’s start with the two ideals Bezos is championing: Personal liberty and free markets.
The economy of Bezos’s stupidity is kinda breathtaking. He announces the principles he wants to publish and then says those principle will be absent from the decision-making about what to publish.
Things will work better if his opinion staff have less personal liberty. The best way to champion free markets is to make his opinion pages not be a free market.
It’s almost as if there’s a self-contradictory flaw in Bezos’s “I read an Ayn Rand” view of the world.
Bezos also argues that his two pillars are underserved (never mind that they won) in America’s market of ideas and news opinion. There may be less subtle ways to announce that you’re not big on reading, but I haven’t read of any.
Not enough about personal liberties? My dude, there’s a whole-ass libertarian magazine. Its slogan is literally, “Free minds and free markets.”
In case anyone on Bezos’s yacht has his ear, please also alert him to the existence of the Wall Street Journal and the National Review.
Wikipedia lists 69 conservative magazines published in the United States. Are they niche publications? Sure. Because there’s a free market.
There’s also the text and video programming of Fox, Fox Business, CNBC, NewsMax, NewsNation, the New York Post, the rest of the Murdoch family media empire, Sinclair, and more, including the Augean stables of “business” magazines.
Then there are the free-market think tanks serving the viewpoints of personal liberty and free markets. And the constellation of political groups masquerading as churches and religious organizations that worship at the pillars of personal liberty and free markets.
This seething gargantuan army is the collective void Bezos suggests we help him fill. And I probably missed some.
What do all of these outlets have in common? They were or are subsidized by a tiny handful of rich people exercising their personal liberty to protect their outlets from the free market. Which would obviously kill them since Bezos doesn’t seem to know they exist.
Plus, Bezos is admitting the failure of his ideas right out of the gate. If his ideas had merit on their own, if he really believed in a free market, he could publish anything to his heart’s content — and even pay to promote it — about personal liberty and free markets right here on Substack under a pseudonym. Jeff Bozos, maybe.
Instead, like so many of today’s billionaires, he’s not creating value for society, he’s extracting it. In this case, he’s extracting reputational value from decades of Washington Post excellence and burning it to fuel his pet causes. He’s trying to energize his ideas with the legacy he’s desiccating.
It’s even more stupider if we look back at Bezos’s decision not to publish an editorial opinion endorsing Vice Pres. Kamala Harris for president; specifically, at his alleged reason for not endorsing her.
Bezos yesterday suggested that by dedicating his opinion pages — every … numbing … day — to his two pillars, he’s “serving” them. But when TFN newsfucked his reasoning back in October, we pointed out that Bezos then was arguing that presidential endorsements don’t move voters. In other words, opinion pieces don’t change readers’ minds.
Except, Bezos said at the time, about the newspapers publishing them:
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.
Yes, Newsfuckers, Bezos wrote an opinion piece to convince people that opinion pieces can’t convince people of anything except the publisher’s bias. It’s not clear why that should be any less true of his two right-wing ideologies than it allegedly was of a Democratic presidential candidate.
And yet now Bezos wants lots of editorials so that people will have his opinions. But how much perception of bias does he think he’s creating by announcing reality of bias?
I dunno about you otherwise trusting Newsfuckers, but I could swear I caught the barest commuter-train-fart whiff of bias in this from Bezos yesterday: “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
On the other hand, what if Bezos actually still believes that opinion pages don’t change, um, opinions? Why would he do this, then?
Well, maybe Bezos’s target audience isn’t his dwindling basket of readers. It has been suggested, understandably, that Bezos wants Pres. Donald Trump to have proof of Bezos’s fealty delivered every morning with his Diet Coke and Egg McMuffin.
But this would require Trump reading, an accusation shy of hard evidence as of press time.
So, Newsfuckers, I submit that Bezos is aiming this at a different billionaire. No, not Musk (see: reading). Instead, I suspect Bezos is transforming the Post into his own personal confirmation-bias machine.
We saw a possible sign of this with his top internal ally. Publisher Will Lewis reportedly disagreed privately before the new policy was announced, but gushed publicly afterward. Almost as if Lewis lacked the personal liberty to disagree publicly in an unfree market. Canceled!
So maybe Bezos’s ultimate target audience is Bezos.
Billionaires are nothing if not solipsistic creatures. And while Bezos may be doing and saying dumbnesses, he is not by any account a dumb person. Perhaps falling in line behind Trump is challenging for a previously thinking person. Maybe Bezos is just installing accommodations for him to lean on and keep him (and those around him) in line.
Removing opposing (overserved!) ideas might simply be to ensure that Bezos isn’t distracted by rationality and empiricism and the glorious light they shed. Maybe “democracy dies in darkness” was less a warning than a promise, only now fulfilled.
Some Ancillary Stupidness
Bezos revealed what a shitty manager he is by discussing his attempt to keep David Shipley on running the opinion section. Bezos used a technique seen all the time on LinkedIn.
It’s not enough that you’re good at the job. It’s not enough that you want the job and apply for it.
You have to give the hiring manager — in this case Bezos — emotional confirmation of their cause. Bezos did that same puerile-boss emotional-manipulation thing and tried to force Shipley to squee at Bezos’s “idea” like a child with no standards.
Bezos required a “Hell, yes” from Shipley because what Bezos wanted wasn’t someone to do the job well but someone to pat Bezos on the head and reassure him he had a very good idea like a big boy.
It’s emotional blackmail. I’ll give you the job if you performatively soothe my insecurities. It’s the same as any job listing seeking applicants who have “a passion for nail-care product branding.” Tell me I’m not wasting my life and you’ve got the job.
Grownups assess whether job candidates are capable of doing an excellent job and have a track record suggesting that they will. Children and billionaires demand displays of excitement and tail-wagging affirmation.
Additional reading:
Former Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron being “disgusted.”
Former Washington Post Senior Managing Editor Cameron Barr severing ties with the paper.
Future former Washington Post journalists unhappy with Bezos.
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
"Maybe “democracy dies in darkness” was less a warning than a promise, only now fulfilled." I've been trying to think of something witty to say about Bezos's WaPo performative slogan—you beat me to it. Very good!
As for Bezos proclaiming: "I am of America and for America, and proud to be so." (Pure bullshit!) What he's done with the Post is one of the most un-American things I've seen in my lifetime.
Brilliant and important article; I’ll be sharing it. But I object to including TFN in a list with the New York Times regarding journalistic integrity; the Times has shown irregular but repeated and disturbing evidence of bought-and-sold corruption for many years. I don’t trust anything they say without checking elsewhere.