​We interrupt this website for a bit of folderol.  But I've gotten away from such things for far too long, and as I noted the other week, I want to get back to at least some of it, to a degree.

This is a really minor, utterly personal, semi-meaningless, silly, off-beat, somewhat funny for its being an inexplicably unnecessary, borderline insulting annoyance.  I came upon it totally by accident, I've waved it off as "Okay, really weird, so what?", but it kept occurring, and finally it didn't just become "occurring," but a pattern, and I had enough and wanted to write about it.

This came about when scrolling through the news feed on my Pixel phone.  Every once in a while there would be a food-related story from a website called Simply Recipes, it would look interesting, I'd read it, it would be somewhat interesting, and I'd move on.

Later, a day or few days later, there would be another article from Simply Recipes.  It too would look interesting, it would be somewhat interesting, and I'd move on.

The would keep happening -- except that after a while I stopped thinking it looked interesting, but instead something about it seemed weird.  But I figured I must have missed something.

Except that it kept happening.  And happening.  And happening.  Every single time.

What it was is that the article would have a title something like, "I asked four chefs about their favorite mustard, and they all said the same thing."

At first that was it.  "Interesting," I thought, "all four chefs like the same mustard.  It must be really good. I should maybe check it out."  Except that over time, it struck me that every single time the "four chefs" they asked always said their favorite was "the same thing."  Always.  As in...always.  AlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlways.  The same brand of jarred pickles, canned diced tomatoes, bottled orange juice, barbecue sauce, mayonnaise.  The same, the same, the same, all four chefs "said the same thing."  Always.

The odds must be staggering.

By the way, early on, I tried a couple of the items.  Both were good -- one didn't seem anything amazingly better over what I usually got, but it was good.  The other was pretty tasty, better than many, though not necessarily the best I'd gotten, but it was good.  Neither were things that struck me "Well, if all four chefs said it was their favorite, it must be amazing."  They weren't amazing.  But they weren't bad at all.  They were good.  Absolutely.  (I'm not using "good" pejoratively, by suggesting it wasn't very good or even excellent.  I don't want to get into subjective tastes here.  Just two categories:  good or bad.)

The only reason I say "early on" is because after a while I stopped reading the articles from Simply Recipes.  While I figured that the items they wrote about would always be tasty, I couldn't assume that they were necessarily The Best and So Much Better Than All Others.  And though the products had all been good, there was something that just seemed...scammy about it.  Not that it was a scam, I have no way of knowing that, and would guess strongly it wasn't -- the problem for Simply Recipes is that when their random and varying "four chefs" always always always say only one item was the best, always, it has the appearance that someone paid for advertising.  I don't think that's case, as I said -- but I do know that the odds make it improbable that every single time all four chefs they asked would always say the same thing.  Always.  And though I don't think it's a scam or paid advertising -- I can't figure out how this improbability would happen.  It defies the odds.  Which is why, no matter how much they can reasonably explain it away (assuming they can), their results are meaningless.  Because those results don't appear even remotely probable.

When I say "always," that's a word without context, so to give it perspective I'll estimate that this happened 30-40 times.  All four chefs said this was their favorite item 30-40 times, which was every time.

And as I said, too, after a while I found it both annoying and insulting.  Annoying because I wanted to know what the product was that was The Unanimous Best -- except that I no longer trusted that it was the best, or even necessarily in the top five.  And insulting because it was assuming I'd be gullible enough to think that because their "four chefs" all thought the product was the favorite that there were no other products that other chefs might think would be better.  Would a fifth chef think the same?  What if they asked 20 chefs what their favorite was?  How did they decide on the four chefs?  Didn't they themselves find it weird that the four chefs they'd ask would always always always always always say the same thing???

I finally decided to check out the Simply Recipes website.

And to my surprise (and pleasure), it looks pretty interesting, very comprehensive, mature, and extremely well-done.  It covers an extensive range of food-related subjects in many different categories.  And many of the articles not only looked intriguing, but also valuable.  And thoughtful and professional.  Nothing remotely as weird as their "I asked four chefs..." stories.  Which made their "I asked four chefs..." stories all the more bewildering.

So, I went to track down my mission:  to find out if it was a newsfeed issue, and maybe my newsfeed only chose to include their "I asked four chefs, and they all said the same product" articles, and perhaps Simply Recipes had other "I asked four chefs" articles on their website where with the chefs had differing opinions.

I found the section on the website with their "I asked four chefs..." articles, scrolled through the long page where these were mixed among other articles, and found nine of them posted there -- and...every single one there, as well, were exactly the same.  All of their magical four chefs always, again, named the same brands.

And just to prove the point, here are two screen shots with eight of them.  I've highlighted the "I asked four chefs..." articles so that you can spot them better.  (And the only reason it's eight, rather than all nine, is because I couldn't shrink the screen enough to fit the ninth article in so they'd all be legible.)
​

​Oh, okay, as I said, there was also one other than I couldn't fit on one of these screen shots.  I might as well include it, as long as I've gone this lunatically far --

​
So, there you have it.  I absolutely don't understand it.  Clearly, Simply Recipes is doing this on purpose.  But I don't know why.  Yes, it singles out a good product -- maybe it's even the best, though not necessarily (nor likely, given all the products and chefs there are).  So, why???  Wouldn't it be much more valuable to readers of an otherwise very well-done food website to provide a range of top products?

I don't get it, and it's not for me to get it.  I do want to read articles about food products that every chef asked agrees on.  But -- I do not want to read articles that are about food products that every chef asked always always always always always always agrees on.  Because it is simply unbelievable, and borderline insulting, and not valuable enough when it can't be believed.

I will add that having told my newsfeed to stop showing articles from Simply Recipes, it now offers other chef-testing articles.  And while happily there are several that have a mix of opinions -- usually articles that rank food brands -- I'm amazed and boggled that there are still a couple of other publications that have very similar "four chefs all liking the same brand" articles.  (The Kitchn.com leads the pack in this now, although I haven't looked into their consistency as closely.)  Maybe they're owned by the same parent company.  Maybe it's kismet.  That said, Simply Recipes remains the most egregious.

There.  I got it out of my system.  And yes, I know it was really minor, utterly personal, semi-meaningless, silly, off-beat, somewhat funny for its being inexplicably unnecessary, and a borderline insulting annoyance.

But you have to admit -- it's really weird.

We're going to turn this morning's posting over to 60 Minutes from Sunday, and one of their most-blistering openings I've ever seen from them, over the course of just one minute

On Sunday, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who blocked the paper’s editorial board from publishing its endorsement of Kamala Harris, causing a mass of subscription cancellations, decided to triple down based on his long, non-existent career in journalism.
 
He posted the following tweet –

I wrote a response, but since TwiXter only always for 288 characters per individual message, my reply didn’t do my position justice.  So, this is an expanded version of it --
 
Dr. Soon-Shiong:  You made a billion dollars in a completely different profession, as a transplant surgeon, medical researcher and inventor of an anti-cancer drug, and therefore seem to think your years in medicine somehow qualifies you for expertise in journalism. This is the equivalent of baseball Hall of Famer Rich "Goose" Gossage buying a hospital because he could afford it and then ordering doctors on how to do open heart surgery.  You keep showing with every tweet you post and every statement you make that you do not understand journalism. No matter how much your directives try to pretend otherwise.
 
"Fair and balanced" is, of course, the motto of Fox which is so identified with the phrase that they trademarked it a quarter-of-a-century ago, something your lawyers could have easily informed you, at least if you cared about fresh, vibrant journalism.  The added irony, of course, being that Fox used its fake concept of "fair and balanced" to flim-flam its viewers into thinking they were getting real journalism, honesty and reality, but instead employed it to lie (remember that $787 million settlement for lying about supposed, rigged voting machines?) and help enable fascism. What most readers of serious newspapers want is not “fair and balanced,” but accurate and honest and the truth. But what MAGOPs and viewers of supposed “fair and balanced” Fox want are fictional, defamatory lies that "balance" the truth in order to appear to be "fair” to their side.  Even if their side is fictional, defamatory, lies and unsupportable.  That's the way you get people willing to vote for someone to be president of the United States, commander-in-chief of U.S. military forces who has been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for what the judge called the equivalence of rape, been found guilty of fraud, said he wants to be a dictator, said he wants to terminate some of the U.S. Constitution and has had psychologists and psychiatrists write articles and books about how he shows signs of dementia -- all of which they dismiss as "fake news."  All of which are literally facts.

To think otherwise, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong would have to believe that under his guidance since buying the paper in 2018, the Los Angeles Times has been publishing news that is false and is the "Enemy of the People".  I am near-certain that he doesn't remotely believe this.  Absent that, though, he doesn't seem to understand (to be incredibly clear) that the MAGOP don't dismiss the Los Angeles Times because they think it is "unfair" in how it reports the news and "not balanced" enough -- but because they believe that what it publishes (and what all of the mainstream press publishes, all of it) is not true, and is a traitorous enemy to the country.
 
"Fair and balanced' is far too often a chimera to obscure the truth, like if 150 eminent scientists independently say their professional studies each show empirically that Climate Change is real, but to be “fair” and to “balance” that out, reporting that, on the other hand, others disagree -- except that those "others" are two local TV weathermen who says they doesn’t believe it.  (Fun Fact:  science is not a belief system, something Dr. Soon-Shiong has dedicated his life to understanding.)
 
“Fair and balanced” is like saying that if you put one foot in a bucket of boiling water and your other foot in a bucket of ice water, the conditions are balanced, so it’s fair to say you are perfectly comfortable. In reality, of course, you’d be screaming your head off.
 
But hey, to be “fair and balanced,” everyone has a valid opinion, and it deserves to be heard.  That’s how it works in medicine, too, right?  If a patient came in your office and said how they wanted their heart transplant handled, because they read a book on it, you’d have considered their opinion as valid as yours, I’m sure.  To be fair and balanced, of course.  After all, as you say, "ALL voices must be heard."
 
Sometimes reporting the truth hurts.  It's the "inconvenient truth," as Al Gore put it.  But it's still the truth.  I’m sure as a doctor, you always told the truth to your patients, not matter how painful that truth was.  You likely might have occasionally softened how you said it, to be kind, but you still told them the truth.  (I’m taking a leap here on the whole “to be kind” concept, given your stance on dealing with professional journalists and saying you’re going to get rid of your editorial board because they endorsed someone you didn’t appear to want to win.)  But a newspaper is only valuable if it investigates and reports the truth.  Otherwise, it’s a PR press release with ads.

That's where trust comes in. Trust is, indeed, critical for a strong democracy, as you write.  But trust doesn't come when the medical doctor owner of a newspaper allows his editorial board from publishing many dozens of endorsements in every race, but personally blocks the most important one for president just one week before the election.  An endorsement they made after lengthy interviewing, thought and debate which they most surely explained openly in their endorsement.  Because trust is critical for a strong democracy -- as you write -- which is why allowing one's own paper to endorse the candidate they were planning to who isn't a convicted felon, guilty of fraud, liable of the equivalence of rape, and who says immigrants eat pet dogs might have been a good thing for establishing trust.
 
But somehow, despite a long and admirable career in medicine and zero experience in journalism, but having the money to buy a newspaper, you have come to believe that you are an expert in journalism, a conclusion you perhaps came to because you’ve read them for years.  That’s like saying you are an expert in making movies because you’ve watched them all your life. 
 
Do you have the right to make any changes you want because you made a billion dollars from your medical invention and could buy a legendary, important newspaper that has been an important part of the culture and lifeblood of Los Angeles since it was founded 143 years ago in 1881?  Perhaps so, but just because a person has the right to do something doesn’t mean it should be done.  If you want to crack open a peanut, you have the right to put it in your driveway, buy a bulldozer, and crush it to bits.  (Sort of like what you’re doing to the Los Angeles Times.)  But – perhaps not, perhaps you don't have the right.  Because often times treasured landmarks of a community, even if owned by someone, are not allowed to make every change because they are of such great, intrinsic, historic value.  People who own their home are generally not allowed to change everything about it, despite being the actual owner, because it goes against code or Homeowner Association rules.  To be clear, the issue isn’t that the Los Angeles Times doesn’t have similar rules, and therefore you can do whatever you want.  The issue is that you bought a newspaper which holds a century-old value to its massive metropolitan community of 18 million people, and you’re spitting all over it because you believe you can.  If that was your attitude, you should never have bought the paper.  It's that whole, pesky "trust" thing you mentioned.
 
It's an attitude that reminds me of a joke I heard online during a Writers Guild strike.  A writer and a producer are dragging themselves through the blistering hot desert, parched and in agony.  Up ahead, they see blessed pool of cool water.  The writer slowly crawls to the edge of the pool and starts to lower his mouth to take a drink – when suddenly he hears a dripping sound.  He stops, and looks up in horror to see the producer urinating in the pool.  “What in the world are you doing??!!” the writer cries out.  The producer warmly smiles, “I’m making it better.”
 
I believe you think you are making the Los Angeles Times better.  (See above.)
 
And that basically is what I said in my 288-character tweet.  Only I said it a bit shorter.
 
When Dr. Soon-Shiong undermined his editorial board, the one tiny saving grace was that it concerned the opinion pages alone, not the news division.  To be clear, yes, that’s very bad, but at least opinions are subjective, and people understand that when reading op-ed pages.  The news division of facts, truth, investigation, and reality, however, seemed protected -- hopefully.  But with this statement by the paper's owner on Sunday, that’s no longer clear.  Further, it raises the question of whether anything that Dr. Soon-Shiong said about blocking publication of the Harris endorsement had anything remotely to do with what he said, or – as this new tweet suggests – is pretty much what he has wanted all along.  I don’t know.  But that’s the door he himself opened.

That door, however, has seemingly been open for a while.  After all, as Politico reported in 2017, right after Trump took office, Dr. Soon-Shiong's harsh criticism of the country's war on cancer "caught the attention of Joe Biden and, more recently, Donald Trump, who met privately with Soon-Shiong twice during the transition, as he reportedly angled for a role in the administration."  After which he bought the Los Angeles Times one year later.  With the possibility now of a new Trump administration, and new roles in it, it's not unreasonable to at least consider that the doctor blocking his paper's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris might not have been as "journalistically" motivated as he'd like people to believe.  Maybe that's not the case at all.  I'm just trying to fair and balanced for those who might think otherwise.

​One would have hoped that, having been born in South Africa and grown up and trained in the medical profession there under apartheid, a person would be especially wary of oppressive, controlling rulers.  Whether in government or business.  Unfortunately, after such a long, admirable career in medicine helping people, the shame is creating a new legacy that undermines such an impressive past.  If only "First, do no harm" continued as your motto, rather than copying the fascist-enabling Fox's trademarked, disingenuous "Fair and balanced".

Okay, imagine that in 288-characters, and you get the idea...
 
By the way, when I said above that Dr. Soon-Shiong had “tripled down” in his tweet that tried to present a non-existent expertise in journalism, I left out mention of the tweet he posted right after the election.  That  read –

Not shockingly, I replied to this, well.  Because of that pesky 288-character limit, this is ​the expanded version, though happily shorter than the one just noted.  What I wrote was (basically) --

“The American people have spoken”??  Trump, thus far (with California still being counted) received 50.2% of the vote!  That’s like tossing a coin.  Kamala Harris has so far received 48.1%.  You pretend to make it seem like there is a “voice of the people” that now covers everyone.  The Senate is split, razor thin.  The House is split, razor thin.  There are 50 state governments, almost half of which are lead by Democrats.  Pro-abortion bills passed across the country, even in Red states.  Same with other liberal propositions.  “The people have spoken”?  You seem to think that that pretend wise-sounding proclamation means something it doesn’t.  Trump won the election – and Democrats (unlike the MAGOP for the past four years) accept it, without rioting, without trying to overthrow the government, but admittedly in anger at what he might do with his foundation of fascism, quotes echoing Hitler, and saying he wants to be a dictator, on top of his 34 felony convictions, being found liable of the equivalence of rape, found guilty of fraud and signs of early dementia.  Seriously, what do you think you are saying?  And more to the point – “the American people have spoken”??  -- what do you think your actual job is??!
 
I’ll give you a reminder: the Los Angeles Times, which you own, specifically serves Los Angeles and California. Other people may read it, because it's long been a good, objective, fact-based paper -- but it serves Los Angeles and California.  That's who actually subscribes to it.  If you want to talk about elections, as you appear to make it seem like you do -- and if you also want to talk about the people speaking -- Kamala Harris actually got 65% of the election vote in Los Angeles, and Trump got only 32%. In the state of California, VP Harris is ahead 59%-38%. In case it slipped past your attention, that is your subscriber base. The people who actually buy your paper. Who support it.  Whose voices actually "spoke" very loudly.  And which, as your subscribers, in your own words, "must be heard".  As in “must.”  Otherwise, why on earth would they read and buy your paper?  As so many former readers made extremely clear by cancelling their subscriptions when you trampled on the editorial board.  Subscriptions on which you base the ad rates that help keep your paper alive. 
 
And if the Los Angeles Times becomes a pale shell of its long-term excellence, it’s not only your fault, but it’s not something you can just toss in a “fair and balanced” transplanted heart to make sure there is still one pumping.  Because when you start removing the heart, and try replacing it instead with conspiratorial bilge to appeal to people whose concept of "fair and balanced" news is believing reports that JFK is coming back from the dead and that Anderson Cooper eats babies, all you risk doing is burying the patient.
 
You are an eminent doctor.  You have zero background or career in journalism.  Do not fool yourself into thinking otherwise.  Making pronouncements about what journalism is and should be, a subject of which you have absolutely no training in just makes you look foolish, like an emperor who buys the Mona Lisa and then paints a funny hat and glasses on her, and pontificates why it’s art – and why he, as now an artist, made it, y’know, “better.”   Buying the 143-year-old Los Angeles Times makes you a caretaker.  You have a community treasure in your hands that is about accuracy, facts, honesty and reality and serving that community.  The paper has had its ups and downs over that century and a half, but it's always stood at the center of the diverse city filled with people coming from all over the country, as its voice.  And for the past half-century, it has been admired and awarded for its drive for high-quality reality-based journalism, a hallmark of democracy.  You, instead, are pushing to make it worthy for the bottom of a birdcage.
 
What I didn't write in my online replies on Sunday, since I didn't want to act out of an immediate, angry response (which has only grown since then), is that after several decades, I have cancelled my subscription to the Los Angeles Times.  It was a very difficult decision because I want to support factual, honest, objective journalism wherever it lands, whoever it offends or supports.  Especially local journalism, in need of and deserving that support. That's why I kept my subscription even after Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked publishing the endorsement of Kamala Harris as it was ready to go to press.  But now his thoroughly disingenuous and even perhaps deceitful positions appear to be bleeding into the news side of the paper, when his posting on Sunday, under the egregiously, deceptive false cover of supposed journalistic "standards" pushed things past the line -- hindering his own paper's open journalism, rather than supposedly expanding it.  I can recognize an owner cowering to and enabling fascism when I see it.  And I don’t want to be a party to that.  What I do want is to return as a subscriber one day to support the actual, important journalists who work there, and the staff that backs them, when providing truthful, factual, honest reporting.  Maybe even soon, if conditions change themselves.  I will not be waiting around, though.

On the heels of the the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times announcing that the newspaper will not be making an endorsement for president, now comes the publisher and CEO of the Washington Post William Lewis announcing that they, too, will not be endorsing for president.  "Or in any future presidential election."  It was a decision that the Post's news division reported was made by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, after a draft of the endorsement for Kamala Harris was sent to him for comments.

The political impact of not endorsing anyone is minimal, bordering on non-existent.  Their news divisions coverage of Trump has made his fascism, convictions and dementia clear.  But it's the caving in to a Hitler-embracing wannabe dictator who might possibly be elected that is so craven as a step towards enabling fascism.

The op-ed that William Lewis wrote about the reasons for the action are deeply disingenuous on several blatant levels. 

For starters, Lewis wrote that it's not a newspaper's role to endorse.  The problem with that, though, is that simply scrolling through the Washington Post's opinion pages shows that the paper does endorse for other races!  (A quick glance showed a U.S. Senate endorsement and one, as well, for the U.S. House.)  So, that explanation by Lewis is utterly meaningless.  In fact, even if he came back to say, "Oh, sorry, I only meant we won't endorse in the presidential race," that would still render his reason meaningless.  After all, if you don't believe it's a newspaper place to endorse, then don't endorse.  Anything.  But they do.  So, what he says is not truthful.

Publisher Lewis also writes that the Post has generally not endorsed -- yet then names a few times the paper actually did make endorsements for "understandable reasons".   So, wait, Trump's fascism, 34 felony convictions, being liable for rape, guilty of fraud, embrace of Hitler and early dementia -- and still calling the press "the enemy of the people" -- isn't a good reason??!!  If all that is not an "understandable reason" to Mr. Lewis and Bezos, then nothing on earth would be.  Including those he cites to explain earlier endorsements by the paper.

Making this faux-explanation worse is that he refers to not endorsing being the "tradition" of the paper.  In reality -- the Washington Post endorsed Joe Biden in the last election.  And has made presidential endorsements in the seven elections preceding that, dating back to 1992, a full 32 years ago.  Moreover, the "tradition" that Mr. Lewis references dates back only to 1936 -- and was only "on an off" flexible since them -- while the paper was actually founded in 1877!  So, that's a lot of actual and foundational "tradition" unaccounted for. 

(It's worth noting about this "tradition" that it began when major Republican Eugene Meyer -- who had been appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve by Herbert Hoover in 1930 -- bought the Washington Post in 1933.  An opponent of the New Deal, he instituted his "no endorsement" policy when FDR ran for re-elction in 1936.  And then in 1940 and 1944.  And when Harry Truman ran in 1948.  And made its first "exception" to its "tradition" to endorse Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.  Just a coincidence, no doubt. So, yes, that's the disingenuous "tradition" William Lewis refers to.  While ignoring that the paper has been endorsing presidents since 32 years ago.  Some "tradition," right?!)

Further, Lewis writes that the decision to not endorse is likely to be seen by some "as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another."  But he adds, "We don’t see it that way."  How adorably naive -- and disingenuous.  After he, must surely know that already the Trump campaign took the refusal of the Los Angeles Times to endorse a candidate as a major "blow" to the Harris campaign.  It wasn't even remotely a blow (as I explained in my article), but the reality that not endorsing a candidate will and actually is being promoted as "tacit endorsement" and "condemnation" means that Mr. Lewis does not "see it that way" only is evidence of political myopia at best, and misrepresentation at worst.

For that matter, if Lewis and Bezos really, truly just wanted to make this decision devoid of any politics, he could have simply announced it a year ago, even just six months ago.  Making the decision 10 days before the election only guarantees that it will have a political impact, making even more disingenuous the insistence to the contrary.  All the more so because from the Post's own reporting by its separate news division, they know that its Bezos/Lewis cowardice is a step towards acquiescing to fascism.  Indeed, if Trump is elected, then however William Lewis writes that he supposedly "sees" this action, he has to know that Trump will see it as caving to intimidation, which will only encourage him.

Finally in his op-ed, Lewis claims that the decision is (supposedly) in support of letting readers make up their own minds. Again, how utterly disingenuous: rather than supporting them (which sounds so "kumbaya" nurturing), this actually belittles Washington Post readers by suggesting the only factor they use for voting is who the Mighty Paper ordains from on high and tells them to!  No, a newspaper endorsement, based on a range of important insights, it's "a" factor in deciding who to vote for President of the United States.  But it is not (for most people, I'm sure) "the" one and only factor.

I'm sure that, like the Los Angeles Times, the Post will lose subscribers. That would be a shame because it's a terrific paper, and newspapers today deserve support. But any losses in subscribers and subsequent ad rates will be their own fault, brought on themselves due to the personal action of Jeff Bezos and William Lewis. 

It's worth noting, for perspective, that Lewis himself has a Murdoch/phone-hacking past, which is still ongoing.  An excellent article on the British court case was written here by Tortoise Media. (It is a British news website co-founded by former BBC News director and The Times editor James Harding, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom Matthew Barzun.)  As they write about the scandal at the end of the piece --

"At the same time it could play the Washington Post into serious difficulties. An active criminal inquiry would be a serious test of [WaPo owner] Jeff Bezos’s loyalty, and his credibility as a proprietor who can be trusted to get the big calls right; calls such as the appointment of Will Lewis as the paper’s CEO and publisher."

At the moment, lest anything changes, which is unlikely, this is a big call that was not gotten right, eroding that trust.

Furthermore, for all the disingenuous explanations given by William Lewis for Jeff Bezos blocking an endorsement for Kamala Harris under the faux-guise of "We're returning to tradition and it's not our responsibility to endorse, it's worth noting, as well, that the Washington Post and Jeff Bezos in particular were singled out by Trump when in office for relentless attacks.  And as Jonathan last wrote in an editorial today for the conservative The Bulwark --

“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."

There is one thing I will say on behalf of the Bezos/Lewis decision that the paper will not make an endorsement for president: disingenuous at the reasons were, William Lewis at least announced it in his paper, and the excellent news division wrote about it. As of yet, neither owner Patrick Soon-Shiong nor anyone at the Los Angeles Times has even mentioned that the paper is not endorsing this year.

As for William Lewis and Jeff Bezos, and the insistence that the Washington Post will not be endorsing for president "in any future presidential election", it's not unreasonable to think that this assurance about the future has a shelf life attached, depending on who's in charge and who owns the paper.  How long or short that "Use By" date is remains to be seen.  As the Post's own history shows, traditions are very flexible.

There's one, bitter irony in all this.  The motto of the Washington Post is -- "Democracy Dies in Darkness."  Jeff Bezos and William Lewis just cowardly turned off the light.

Yesterday, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the paper in 2018 for $500 million, reprehensibly blocked the editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
 
Mariel Garza, the editorials editor for the paper, quit later that day.
 
“I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent,” Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.”
 
The editorial board had written an outline of the endorsement of VP Harris had intended to endorse Harris, and sent it up the chain to get feedback.  That’s when she was told that the Times wouldn’t be publishing an endorsement.
 
Putting aside what an abrogation of journalistic responsibility this is by the paper’s billionaire owner – it’s also inexplicably stupid.  Not only is the Los Angeles Times a fairly liberal paper, but Kamala Harris is going to win California by a landslide.  She’s beating Trump in the polls by 24 points!  An endorsement of Kamala Harris wasn’t likely to change many minds about the readers,   And news of the endorsement wasn’t going to affect the results – at all -- in the state.
 
But – what Soon-Shiong’s disgraceful action does do is draw far more attention to the editorial board’s intention to endorse VP Harris than the published endorsement ever would have gotten.  It’s already been written about by the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Newsweek, CNN, NPR, Axios, the Daily Beast, The Hill, Yahoo! News, Deadline, the Columbia Journalism Review and much more, including numerous TV stations across the state.  I’m certain more newspapers across the country will be writing about it, as news of the editor’s resignation (which only occurred two hours before writing this article) spreads.

In fact, how problematic is this for the paper?  In Los Angeles magazine's endorsement of Kamala Harris, which came following the breaking of this story, they wrote, “Trump represents an existential threat to everything we love about Los Angeles…Unlike the LA Times, I don’t want any ambiguity where we stand. Silence is complicity.”
 
And beyond spreading word of the intended endorsement far wider than it would have gone otherwise, it also spreads news of billionaires trying to shut down Freedom of the Press (along with Trump threatening to sue CBS for airing an interview he didn’t like) and buying the election (including Elon Musk offering to pay $1 million a day to a “raffle” winner among those who sign a petition for his PAC – for which he just received a cease-and-desist letter from the Department of Justice).
 
Furthermore, at some point the Los Angeles Times itself is going to have to write about the story.  After all, it’s one thing for ownership to impact its opinion in editorials – it’s another entirely to start directing the news.  At the moment, Wednesday afternoon, as I write this [NOTE: And Thursday morning as I double-checked the paper], there is no mention of the decision and resignation in the paper.  I’m sure there will be -- it's clearly a dicey, awkward subject for the paper, and they're likely trying to figure out to best cover it.  In the meantime, though, they're getting scooped by everyone.  If they don’t end up covering it at all, however, that would end up being an even bigger scandal.  And probably start losing subscribers (if it hasn’t already), which affects ad rates. They have, at least, published many utterly scathing Letters to the Editor. And one in support of the owner's decision -- I'm guessing from a Trump voter.

(For what it’s worth, I haven’t cancelled mine yet.  I look forward to how the news side eventually covers the story.  And the editorial page, as well.)
 
And when the news division does write about the ownership decision and resignation (because they have to or lose all credibility) -- it will likely have to include that the paper was going to endorse Kamala Harris and had even written the first draft!  So, the endorsement will get in the paper anyway.
 
Meanwhile, if Soon-Shiong had just done…nothing – the Los Angeles Times would have endorsed Kamala Harris to its mostly liberal readers in a state she’s outpolling Trump by 24 points, and it would have evoked a yawn and hardly gone any further.
 
Editorials editor Garza noted this and the dangers as well.  “I didn’t think we were going to change our readers’ minds—our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters,” Garza continued.  “We’re a very liberal paper. I didn’t think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California.
 
“But two things concern me: This is a point in time where you speak your conscience no matter what. And an endorsement was the logical next step after a series of editorials we’ve been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn’t be reelected.”
 
The story, of course, was picked up by the Trump campaign.  What I find hilarious and tone deaf is their total cluelessness about what the story actually is, calling the newspaper’s decision “the latest blow” for Harris.
 
“In Kamala’s own home state, the Los Angeles Times—the state’s largest newspaper—has declined to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket, despite endorsing the Democrat nominees in every election for decades,” the campaign wrote. “Even her fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job.”

First of all, as I noted, “her fellow Californians” have her leading Trump in the polls by 24%.  It’s hard to imagine anyone other than the most ignorant of Trump supporters who would think she won’t swamp him in the state.  Second, the story is very clear that it wasn’t the newspaper that decided this, but the billionaire owner blocking his own paper’s freedom of speech.
 
That is the story.  That is the clear story.  And I’m guessing that pretty much everyone gets it.  Easily.  For the Trump campaign to put blinders on and think or just try to convince the public (since I’m not sure “thinking” was involved here) that this is a “blow” to her campaign – rather than a story that brings freedom of the press and fascism to the forefront, while driving news of the written Harris-endorsement (and resignation of the editor) so much farther than it ever would have gone, which Trump’s campaign themselves are helping spread – is chuckle-headed incompetence at its most core.  And pure Trumpian:  believing that just because you say something insanely stupid to be negative, most people will accept it as true.  Indeed, I’m sure most Republicans planning to vote for Trump think the Los Angeles Times wasn’t planning to endorse Kamala Harris.  But they now will hear a story about a billionaire censoring his own editorial board and will hear about the planned endorsement – and will also hear it all put in context of MAGOP fascism spreading further in country.
 
In the end, what I would love is for the Los Angeles Times to write an editorial explaining that they will not be publishing an endorsement for President of the United States because the owner didn’t want them to.  And so they will not be printing an endorsement of Kamala Harris that had been outlined and sent to the billionaire owner for his approval.
 
That’s not going to happen.  I know.  But I’d still love it.
 
Meanwhile, word of the intended endorsement has already gotten out.  And by the time this is posted, it might have even made the Los Angeles Times front page.

There's a strange story that hasn't gotten much attention, but is very telling.  (Since it was uncovered, in part, by CNN, it may get traction, at least online where they reported the scoop.)  It's that tweets are being sent out from fake TwiXter accounts using the photos of popular European influencers that endorse Trump.  Many, if not all of them, having the Blue Check Marks validating the accounts that, thanks to Elon Musk, anyone can buy.

What makes the story crazy, if not bizarre is that while the photos are of real people -- European influencers, as I said -- the accounts for them are under fictitious names.  This means that few people in the United States (y'know, the people who actually vote) would have the slightest idea who they are and therefore would mean absolutely nothing to them.  So, why on Earth, use these people?  The thinking is that using real people makes the fake accounts seem more personal -- totally understandable, except that if that's what you want, you could use the photos of anyone.  And if you didn't want to use photos of American citizens who might be recognized here, okay, makes sense, then use photos of people who live in Lithuania.  Or Slovenia.  Or Albania.  (Actually, Liechtenstein would be ideal -- it's not only tiny, but begins with "Lie.")  You'd probably be pretty safe from detection with any of them.  But instead, for some crackpot reason, they decided to use photos of among the most popular influencers in Europe!  Who have a reasonable chance of being recognized by fans in Europe and bring attention to the scam.  Maybe they thought more eye-catching photos were available they could use -- but posting intimate photos of oneself is a feature, not a bug on social media.  Perhaps even more so for private individual more than professional influencers with a high profile.  So, it's…well, weird.  One more weird thing in the weird Trump campaign.

By the way, to be clear, this isn't a funny story, but something deeply serious.  It's just that the handling of something this sophisticated was so comically screwy that it helped allow the scam to be uncovered.

One example, in this article from CNN, is a a fake TwiXter account with a very large following for someone named "Luna" - who is fictious  -- however it uses a photo of Debbie Nederlof, a German fashion influencer who, of course, can't vote in the United States.  CNN contacted, Ms. Nederlof - who is a trained optician and single mother working two jobs (a social media manager at an engineering firm and as a mode).  As CNN described it, she was "was angry and frustrated that her face was being used to push pro-Trump propaganda" on the social media platform.

"To be honest, 'what the f**k?' was my reaction," she said. "That was my reaction, because I have nothing to do with the United States. With Trump, the political things over there. What the hell do I - from a small place in Germany - care about US politics?"
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