The Biggest Losers of this election cycle aren’t leftists rage-screaming on Twitter, it’s the legacy media outlets. The leftstreaming of traditional media, outside of Fox News, is complete. It’s also an utter failure. A vast majority of the public has lost faith in their integrity. According to Gallup tracking, 36% of Americans have “no trust at all” in legacy media. Another 33% “not very much”. Only 31% say they have a “great deal” or even “fair amount” of trust in these institutions. That 31% tracks pretty closely with the 25% of Americans who self-identify with the left.
The leftist talking heads on MSNBC haven’t learned anything, obviously. Nor have the ink-wasters at the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. But is that about to change?
Pat Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times refused to allow the paper to endorse Kamala Harris, ostensibly in the name of a return to journalistic ethics and impartiality. Amazon boss and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos did likewise. Both have since signaled that they intend to revamp and re-center these coastal flagships.
Here’s Soon-Shiong’s comment from X:
And here’s Bezos on his decision:
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, wrote. “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…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.)”
Are Soon-Shiong and Bezos heralding a new, balanced, honest future for legacy journalism? A return to journalistic principles of unbiased reporting?
Maybe…but I wouldn’t count on it.
Soon-Shiong’s daughter, Nika, who plays a major role in her father’s decisions said that withholding the LA Times endorsement from Harris was due to her refusal to intervene on behalf of Gazans against Israel. Bezos’ OpEd takes shots at social media “disinformation.” It may turn out that both are ready to set a new direction, but the resistance they’ve faced to date in their newsrooms suggests that both Bezos and Soon-Shiong have a long road ahead of them to make that happen, if they truly intend to do so.
And they should. When I moved to Tucson, Arizona circa 1990, the Arizona Daily Star was a well-respected publication (great sports page) with broad distribution. Now, it reportedly has less than 20,000 subscribers in an area with over 1 million residents. The Arizona Republic, based in Phoenix, the state’s “flagship” newspaper reaches less than 50,000 people among a population of over 4.5 million. Reporters and execs at both papers have blamed a variety of issues over the years, but the simple fact is the massive decline of both subscriber bases happened in the same way, for the exact same reason: both papers abandoned reason in favor of leftist cheerleading. Shockingly, when you have a newspaper that goes out if its way to offend and belittle two thirds of the population, the majority will tune it out.
Newspapers still have a valuable function in our society – local, non-political news is still generally well-covered, and important – but that value proposition has been undermined by naked partisanship driving readers away. Here’s hoping Bezos and Soon-Shiong are serious about reform, because it’s the only way these institutions will regain relevance.
Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Sam Stone only and not his co-host Chuck Warren or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.
