I think Jeff Bezos was making the point that making endorsements is not good for the newspaper. Let me give an example.
If the Post Star endorses candidate A. A will be happy, but not grateful. After all, A feels entitled to the endorsement.
The candidates that didn’t get endorsed will be angry and bitter toward the Post Star. They will say the Post Star is biased and unfair and poorly informed. Why should we subscribe to this obviously biased newspaper?
As a long-term time committee person, town chair, and county chair, I have been involved with dozens and dozens of endorsements. These endorsements can make or break a candidate’s success. If four people come into an endorsement meeting and only one leaves with an endorsement, I end up with three enemies and an ingrate.
So I agree with Bezos. It may feel good to tell people how they should vote, but it’s not good for the newspaper business in this highly polarized political environment.
Where as, seldom does an media make more money by endorsing one candidate...but they do gain value by printing facts, and an endorsement with facts explaining why.. is worth a lot for people who don't consume reality and are surrounded by daily likes in their mailbox
That is only true, if the endorsement does not explain why.
The media's job is to shine a light -- the disinfectant of morality and truth.
To not endorse a presidential candidate and conversely not point out: "America does not need a failure who is a convicted rapist and felon -- and likely more if it wasn't for legal rangling-- is the biggest mistake.
Now does bezo, not want the light shining on liars who are not for the working class and the poor...and will give him more tax breaks... of course not. His opinion is worth a lot, if you ignore his reason. (big 'IF')
We used to run a feature called "Inside the Editorial board" where it explained the viewpoints of different board members and why they voted why they did. It seems to me a 3-2 vote by editorial board indicates two decent candidates, but a 5-0 vote not so much.
On the other hand - think back in time - has that always been the reaction from an endorsement? Or is that something that changed over the last oh, 10-20 years? I honestly dont remember the whining & complaining from the "other" party back then. As I remember, very little comment at all - the parties just continued to get their particular policies into the public.
I wish I could agree. But in this case, though, Mr. Bezos was thinking with his Blue Horizon or whateverthat space venture is called and all the billions that will come. He was currying favor with Trump out of self-interest. Nothing more. Because he doesn't have enough billions, and he's bending the knee in obesiance to the man he thinks will have all the power. And if Trump wins, Bezos's chances of coming out unflayed in the end diminish every day as do the Russian billionaires who kow-tow to Putin, Trump's BFF and mentor.
Bezos has his own space venture. Remember a year or so ago there was the race of the multi billionaires into space - who would get there first, etc. I just looked up the name: it's Blue Origin. He walked out of that space plane wearing the biggest cowboy hat you ever saw. Here's their website: https://www.blueorigin.com/.
I used to keep the stats om our endorsements and for the most part half of our endorsed candidates lost. So do the candidates still feel we are biased. Is it just GOP candidates or DEM candidates? Or do both feel we are biased. We endorsed approximately 75 percent GOP candidates - they had the better people - so were we biased just 25 percent of the time. I get what you are saying. It is the perception that kills the newspaper reputation.
Yes. Anytime anyone is rejected by either the newspapers or a political committee, there’s gonna be hard feelings. Most small businesses will not allow you to put up lawn signs on their property because they don’t want to alienate half the people.
Studies found readers paid endorsements little heed and, in a digital world, many didn't understand the distinction between straight news stories and advocacy-driven editorials. In many cases, chain ownership took the decision out of the hands of local editors. At a time the news business is struggling, they didn't want to give any readers an excuse to leave.
"They really don't want to rattle or piss off the people who are not going to like their endorsement," said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. "The solution is just not to do them."
You have pointed out several times how pos_tfnKKK will walk to the edge but not step over... I thought, momentarily that was a good assessment. But then what she does is still lie. If you listen to her speech at Madison Square Garden, you know little of what she said was actually true. One might surmise, ‘well it wasn’t an out and out lie.’
It was.
The problem we have in this country, is no longer the liars. Right now we are rewarding the liars. pos_tfnKKK will likely win the election, but only because her supporters pinch their nose and vote for her lies.
ANYTIME you see a supporter and you ask why, they have no answer (that isn’t a lie).
A neighbor has a sign that says pos_tfnKKK supports the blue. Well she says she does and she sold the guy a sign repeating that lie.
But it is a lie.
Those around hmpy trmpy can’t even ignore the lie, they must repeat it. He lost the election... he never has EVER had the popular vote.
When mike johnson refuses to say hmpy lost, he is lying.. saying he doesn’t want to look back.. his next comment is always a look back and a lie about what trmpy said yesterday.
And the thing.
The disgusting foolish thing... it is always said by people who say they are devout.
In other words, lying is such a practice for them, they are willing to break with the teachings of their cHurch and their bible.
The saddest thing about the lies (and the repeating of them over and over) is that politicians have single-handedly created moral decay. If you look at polls you will see the favorability of politicians ever so low. But if you look at any other group (media, religious leaders, police) they are also strikingly low.
The irony.
The disgusting thing.
The reason. People no longer trust anyone, and it is because people like hmpy trmpy and pos_tfnkkk refer to things like the media (‘fake news’), college professors (‘supporting racism’), etc. And this because politicians that we know are liars (but for some reason we are afraid to say ‘liar’) lie about the media, college professors, etc.
You are absolutely right. She walks the line so she can walk it back and explain it later that that was not what she said. She is very careful. She is a political creature who wants to play on both sides of the ball.
Can you imagine politicians getting a whistle, being called for unsportsmanlike conduct? Penalty box? $$fines? Maybe those dollars would go to a fund for local non - profits or govt agency, like disaster relief??
That reminds me of the game of chicken the Republicans have been playing with paying for the increased national debt - run up mostly by Republicans with their enormous tax cuts for the wealthy over the last 40 years. Since they love the drama, the cameras and the bloviating their irresponsibility and threats gain them attention, it's time to doc them their salary. For example for each day they stall and bloviate, doc them 1 week's pay, including all their perks which conceivably could include salaries for their staffs. Instead, they get away with furloughing federal workers, close national parks and lay off or furlough those workers, and worry the heck out of Social Security beneficiaries like me as well as any other person who depends upon the federal government to honor its promises. It's time to discipline those in power. That's the only way to establish a sense of honor, albeit by force.
And the effects of these games affect those governments outside our shores. BRICs countries are setting up their own hegemonic currency to rival ours. If our allies and trade partners and those who've invested trillions into our currency can't trust our legislators to act like honorable adults, why not create a rival basic currency standard. It's time to get rid of the toddlers in the House and replace them with adults.
I have seen many of the political signs, flags and bumper stickers - and an embarrassment of a van - supporting Trump and Stefanik. It always puzzles me when people make their political views part of their identity. Whether Trump and/or Stefanik wins or loses, you know that bumper sticker will still be on their car like a Salt Life or Baby on Board sticker for years to come.
I love Maureen Dowd's quote, but America is also the home to the "Lost Cause" myth, the heroism of Robert E. Lee, and the downplaying of racist destructions of whole towns in the South. There are others. For Abe to speak of "the better angels of our nature" implies the existence of the worse. May the positive myths continue to inspire.
Don’t know if you read HCR, but you might like this. I’ve been saying for a long time that the Again Trump wants to go back to is somewhere in the latter half of the 1800s. Pre or post slavery is the only question. He’d assuredly find the Gilded Age appealing and his fascination with tariffs is maybe a tell.
About tariffs. There's another side to it, which is Trump's which, in turn, would appeal to those enraged working class white men because it is protectionist of the home economy. One of China's methods of garnering all that formerly American manufacturing is that they expected us to take their "goods" which weren't very good in the beginning, while closing their economy to our exports to them. Other Asian countries did and some continue to do the same because it builds their economies, it creates their middle class...and it's one of the methods we in the U.S. used to create our own national wealth and middle class. The levels Trump is suggesting would incentivize our national corporations to re-home some or all of those jobs.
I'm not taking a stand on this. Everyone deserves a way to make a decent living no matter where they live. But tariffs as protectionism of the state's economy would appeal to those workers whose middle class jobs disappeared and who now work two or three jobs while their spouse also works just to make a living.
The problem with this idea, that we would simply bring back industrial jobs, is that the machinery is long gone and it was likely outdated before the jobs went overseas. Manufacturers who reinvested in equipment upgrades are likely still in business at home, but those who did not, shut down long ago. Those jobs won’t come back because the capital investment for startup plus the necessary higher wages for American workers make for an un competitively priced product.
I agree but then again, that’s more industrialization, more jobs for those factories that have to build that equipment. That’s the thing about reindustrialization, it grows to suppliers who in turn need suppliers all down the line.
I think Kamala’s going to win. She has her own programs and it will be interesting to see how she goes about it. Biden re-homed semi-conductor plants in several states including Syracuse and he did it without tariffs. He did it legislatively with the Chips Act which Trump and Mike Johnson want to repeal. Imagine that - combining exceedingly high costs for imports while cutting off home grown manufacturing built with terrific job growth. Where is the sense in that? And Musk has informed the working class and middle class that they will be paying the price for this “economic program”, not the billionaires. No, the billionaires would get $3.5 million more each year in tax cuts.
I live in Rensselaer County, east of Albany. I believe strongly in supporting local newspapers. So I subscribed to the Schenectady Daily Gazette, the Troy Record, and the Albany Times Union. Each paper has printed items I disagree with. Sometimes I write a letter to the editor and express my displeasure. But when the Gazette endorsed Elise Stefanik, I blew a gasket and cancelled my subscription.
I also want to support national news so I subscribe to the Washington Post and The NY Times. But when Bezos flipped us all off with the non-endorsement, another gasket blew and I cancelled my WaPo subscription.
I’m still not sure I did the right thing. Either time. Did my cancelling the WaPo subscription contribute to the laying off of a young new talented journalist? Worse, did my cancelling of the Gazette contribute to the shuttering of an entire department?
These are not rhetorical questions. I really am asking for your thoughts.
I fully understand why someone would cancel their subscription to a local or national paper over their endorsement policies. It can be a satisfying way to express one’s dissatisfaction with a newspaper.
Before I would do that, though, I’d take a close look at the paper’s reporting and answer a few questions for myself. Do I value the work of the reporters and editors? Would I miss it if I no longer subscribed? Am I affecting the financial viability of a newspaper that may be struggling already? Is the paper worth reading?
These are questions only the subscribers can answer.
I think a bigger question is the facts behind the endorsment. In the Post and LA Times case, the owner made the call not the editorial board. That's what I want to know. Who made the call? If it's the editorial board, I can live with that.
But the responsibility does not lie with you, the customer. The responsibility lies with the owner. And the owner is somewhere within the top 5 billionaires in the U.S. It is laudable that you ponder that loss of employment. It's telling that Bezos and the LA Times's owner don't consider it.
That's the thing. Newspapers are a very different business where the customer is not always right. Newspapers are supposed to do what is in the best interest of the average citizen, its business be damned. Had a lot of fights with out advertising department over that one.
I wonder if it's a matter of how close by the owner is. The reports are that WaPo's editorial board had their endorsement of Harris already set for print and Bezos said no. And he did it to curry favor with Trump. It looks like you had the authority to print what you saw fit without Lee interfering and that is a great situation if you have to be owned by an outside owner who doesn't butt in. That's just my opinion, of course.
Isn't it pleasant to disagree cordially? Yours is the inside experience while I take a very dim view of monopoly wannabe corporations. We desperately need a muscular DoJ to go back to trust busting. That alone would help increase employment. Out of state mega corporations have a way of following the bean counters to find cheaper costs, including labor costs, taxes, environmental regs, etc. and picking up sticks and moving elsewhere in the US or foreign countries.
The quote “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind” applies to newspaper subscriptions, shoes/clothing items that don’t fit, relationships etc. 🤔
You can always restart your subscriptions at another time, Bridget!”
(Next week if tRump loses!)
I stopped my Amazon Prime membership in protest last week. I intend to shop “local” more often from here on to support our local economy.
Glad to hear our GF Football team is on its way to the finals...HOWEVER, I wish to post this question??? does a football championship warrant School taxes that are 30% higher than property taxes???? It's something to consider.
As someone who loves sports, spent 20 years in the newspaper sports department, it's not the money that bothers me, it is the attitude among parents their start athletes are all going to get Div. 1 scholarships. It is a very small number that get that. I'd prefer that the really good athletes get involved in club sports as they do in many places in Europe instead of hjigh school sports. Academic investment much wiser for the long haul.
Thank you, Ken, for this wandering wonderful Front Page traveling from flags, to who we worship, to sports, to penguins, to the Chapman's wine and chocolate, and ending with that excellent quote by Maureen Dowd. So just to say I have a huge Earth flag and small peace prayer flags in different languages all blowing in the wind...and signs about the climate crisis and code red, and General Eisenhower's wise words "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the vital sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed"...along with political signs about Prop One and candidates I support. Clearly I and we need to give voice to what we feel and believe. And this is an "apology": On October 22, I sent a letter to the Chronicle. When it wasn't printed that week, I assumed it wouldn't be and sent it to you because I felt so strongly about the need to question, to reflect on our deeper values. You kindly printed it. On October 31 Mark Frost printed that letter with many other opinion pieces. I appreciated that both you and the Chronicle allow different voices in our community to be heard. May we all question, speak what is true, and act for our common good. Thank you, Ken, for your good voice.
Thanks, Ken. Like your comment, “We all define ourselves in different ways,” and I would add, and some of us in ways more different than others.
Also, thanks for focusing on the danger of raising ANY politician “to the level of a deity.”
As the Good Book says (even the $69 Trump edition), “You shall have no other gods before me.”
I don’t want celebrity leaders/politicians. I want servant leaders/politicians. Jesus said, “I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life …for others.”
I apologize if this sounds a bit “preachy” but it’s an occupational hazard.
“Four years ago, a Queensbury resident on Aviation Road attached a home-made sign to his fence proclaiming that Trump is still the president.
The sign has shown wear and tear over those four years.”
That seems like an apt metaphor for Trump himself. I love seeing one of his flags faded and torn hanging off someone’s house. Hopefully soon that’ll be just enough of a reminder.
I had a Methodist flag hanging next to my porch for awhile, but the red in the flame got too faded so I took it down.
It’s interesting that neither Glens Falls newspapers mentioned the GF-Green Tech football game. I’m told it was a nasty affair on both sides. Perhaps better that way since it boiled down to the privileged team against the inner city team whose potentially better life experience is the game.
I did not necessarily witness anything ugly until the four consecutive unsportsmanlike calls at the end of the game. I'm guessing the refs were taking some abuse.
Very riveting review of this Drs. personal experiences with complicated OB cases…and worsening scenarios across our country with so many states’ restrictive OB-GYN emergency interventions. Thanks Maggie.
I think Jeff Bezos was making the point that making endorsements is not good for the newspaper. Let me give an example.
If the Post Star endorses candidate A. A will be happy, but not grateful. After all, A feels entitled to the endorsement.
The candidates that didn’t get endorsed will be angry and bitter toward the Post Star. They will say the Post Star is biased and unfair and poorly informed. Why should we subscribe to this obviously biased newspaper?
As a long-term time committee person, town chair, and county chair, I have been involved with dozens and dozens of endorsements. These endorsements can make or break a candidate’s success. If four people come into an endorsement meeting and only one leaves with an endorsement, I end up with three enemies and an ingrate.
So I agree with Bezos. It may feel good to tell people how they should vote, but it’s not good for the newspaper business in this highly polarized political environment.
Point taken, but rarely are decisions by the rich and powerful so altruistic. And in this specific case, it seems certainly that it was not.
as is the case with bezos and musk.
Where as, seldom does an media make more money by endorsing one candidate...but they do gain value by printing facts, and an endorsement with facts explaining why.. is worth a lot for people who don't consume reality and are surrounded by daily likes in their mailbox
That is only true, if the endorsement does not explain why.
The media's job is to shine a light -- the disinfectant of morality and truth.
To not endorse a presidential candidate and conversely not point out: "America does not need a failure who is a convicted rapist and felon -- and likely more if it wasn't for legal rangling-- is the biggest mistake.
Now does bezo, not want the light shining on liars who are not for the working class and the poor...and will give him more tax breaks... of course not. His opinion is worth a lot, if you ignore his reason. (big 'IF')
We used to run a feature called "Inside the Editorial board" where it explained the viewpoints of different board members and why they voted why they did. It seems to me a 3-2 vote by editorial board indicates two decent candidates, but a 5-0 vote not so much.
On the other hand - think back in time - has that always been the reaction from an endorsement? Or is that something that changed over the last oh, 10-20 years? I honestly dont remember the whining & complaining from the "other" party back then. As I remember, very little comment at all - the parties just continued to get their particular policies into the public.
We got tremendous push back on presidential endorsements, but not so much on local endorsements for supervisor or Common Council.
I stand corrected! Likely I wasnt paying that much attention at the time and you were!
It just depends on the year and the race. The Queensbury elections after the email scandal in 2017 had lots of pushback.
I wish I could agree. But in this case, though, Mr. Bezos was thinking with his Blue Horizon or whateverthat space venture is called and all the billions that will come. He was currying favor with Trump out of self-interest. Nothing more. Because he doesn't have enough billions, and he's bending the knee in obesiance to the man he thinks will have all the power. And if Trump wins, Bezos's chances of coming out unflayed in the end diminish every day as do the Russian billionaires who kow-tow to Putin, Trump's BFF and mentor.
It's Musk with the space venture. Bezos owns Amazon, but likely he is catering to his own self interest with that company.
Bezos has his own space venture. Remember a year or so ago there was the race of the multi billionaires into space - who would get there first, etc. I just looked up the name: it's Blue Origin. He walked out of that space plane wearing the biggest cowboy hat you ever saw. Here's their website: https://www.blueorigin.com/.
I used to keep the stats om our endorsements and for the most part half of our endorsed candidates lost. So do the candidates still feel we are biased. Is it just GOP candidates or DEM candidates? Or do both feel we are biased. We endorsed approximately 75 percent GOP candidates - they had the better people - so were we biased just 25 percent of the time. I get what you are saying. It is the perception that kills the newspaper reputation.
Yes. Anytime anyone is rejected by either the newspapers or a political committee, there’s gonna be hard feelings. Most small businesses will not allow you to put up lawn signs on their property because they don’t want to alienate half the people.
That's true and probably good business, except for certain diner owners in Glens Falls.
From NPR:
Studies found readers paid endorsements little heed and, in a digital world, many didn't understand the distinction between straight news stories and advocacy-driven editorials. In many cases, chain ownership took the decision out of the hands of local editors. At a time the news business is struggling, they didn't want to give any readers an excuse to leave.
"They really don't want to rattle or piss off the people who are not going to like their endorsement," said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. "The solution is just not to do them."
The answer to MoDo’s question is simple: through gullibility, then complicity.
“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”
― James Baldwin
Lies and more lies
You have pointed out several times how pos_tfnKKK will walk to the edge but not step over... I thought, momentarily that was a good assessment. But then what she does is still lie. If you listen to her speech at Madison Square Garden, you know little of what she said was actually true. One might surmise, ‘well it wasn’t an out and out lie.’
It was.
The problem we have in this country, is no longer the liars. Right now we are rewarding the liars. pos_tfnKKK will likely win the election, but only because her supporters pinch their nose and vote for her lies.
ANYTIME you see a supporter and you ask why, they have no answer (that isn’t a lie).
A neighbor has a sign that says pos_tfnKKK supports the blue. Well she says she does and she sold the guy a sign repeating that lie.
But it is a lie.
Those around hmpy trmpy can’t even ignore the lie, they must repeat it. He lost the election... he never has EVER had the popular vote.
When mike johnson refuses to say hmpy lost, he is lying.. saying he doesn’t want to look back.. his next comment is always a look back and a lie about what trmpy said yesterday.
And the thing.
The disgusting foolish thing... it is always said by people who say they are devout.
In other words, lying is such a practice for them, they are willing to break with the teachings of their cHurch and their bible.
The saddest thing about the lies (and the repeating of them over and over) is that politicians have single-handedly created moral decay. If you look at polls you will see the favorability of politicians ever so low. But if you look at any other group (media, religious leaders, police) they are also strikingly low.
The irony.
The disgusting thing.
The reason. People no longer trust anyone, and it is because people like hmpy trmpy and pos_tfnkkk refer to things like the media (‘fake news’), college professors (‘supporting racism’), etc. And this because politicians that we know are liars (but for some reason we are afraid to say ‘liar’) lie about the media, college professors, etc.
You are absolutely right. She walks the line so she can walk it back and explain it later that that was not what she said. She is very careful. She is a political creature who wants to play on both sides of the ball.
Can you imagine politicians getting a whistle, being called for unsportsmanlike conduct? Penalty box? $$fines? Maybe those dollars would go to a fund for local non - profits or govt agency, like disaster relief??
I'd love to see that as one of the rules in the debate.
That reminds me of the game of chicken the Republicans have been playing with paying for the increased national debt - run up mostly by Republicans with their enormous tax cuts for the wealthy over the last 40 years. Since they love the drama, the cameras and the bloviating their irresponsibility and threats gain them attention, it's time to doc them their salary. For example for each day they stall and bloviate, doc them 1 week's pay, including all their perks which conceivably could include salaries for their staffs. Instead, they get away with furloughing federal workers, close national parks and lay off or furlough those workers, and worry the heck out of Social Security beneficiaries like me as well as any other person who depends upon the federal government to honor its promises. It's time to discipline those in power. That's the only way to establish a sense of honor, albeit by force.
And the effects of these games affect those governments outside our shores. BRICs countries are setting up their own hegemonic currency to rival ours. If our allies and trade partners and those who've invested trillions into our currency can't trust our legislators to act like honorable adults, why not create a rival basic currency standard. It's time to get rid of the toddlers in the House and replace them with adults.
I have seen many of the political signs, flags and bumper stickers - and an embarrassment of a van - supporting Trump and Stefanik. It always puzzles me when people make their political views part of their identity. Whether Trump and/or Stefanik wins or loses, you know that bumper sticker will still be on their car like a Salt Life or Baby on Board sticker for years to come.
I love Maureen Dowd's quote, but America is also the home to the "Lost Cause" myth, the heroism of Robert E. Lee, and the downplaying of racist destructions of whole towns in the South. There are others. For Abe to speak of "the better angels of our nature" implies the existence of the worse. May the positive myths continue to inspire.
Don’t forget John C Calhoun. We’re living in his world now.
Don’t know if you read HCR, but you might like this. I’ve been saying for a long time that the Again Trump wants to go back to is somewhere in the latter half of the 1800s. Pre or post slavery is the only question. He’d assuredly find the Gilded Age appealing and his fascination with tariffs is maybe a tell.
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/november-3-2024?r=9qpud&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
About tariffs. There's another side to it, which is Trump's which, in turn, would appeal to those enraged working class white men because it is protectionist of the home economy. One of China's methods of garnering all that formerly American manufacturing is that they expected us to take their "goods" which weren't very good in the beginning, while closing their economy to our exports to them. Other Asian countries did and some continue to do the same because it builds their economies, it creates their middle class...and it's one of the methods we in the U.S. used to create our own national wealth and middle class. The levels Trump is suggesting would incentivize our national corporations to re-home some or all of those jobs.
I'm not taking a stand on this. Everyone deserves a way to make a decent living no matter where they live. But tariffs as protectionism of the state's economy would appeal to those workers whose middle class jobs disappeared and who now work two or three jobs while their spouse also works just to make a living.
The problem with this idea, that we would simply bring back industrial jobs, is that the machinery is long gone and it was likely outdated before the jobs went overseas. Manufacturers who reinvested in equipment upgrades are likely still in business at home, but those who did not, shut down long ago. Those jobs won’t come back because the capital investment for startup plus the necessary higher wages for American workers make for an un competitively priced product.
I agree but then again, that’s more industrialization, more jobs for those factories that have to build that equipment. That’s the thing about reindustrialization, it grows to suppliers who in turn need suppliers all down the line.
I think Kamala’s going to win. She has her own programs and it will be interesting to see how she goes about it. Biden re-homed semi-conductor plants in several states including Syracuse and he did it without tariffs. He did it legislatively with the Chips Act which Trump and Mike Johnson want to repeal. Imagine that - combining exceedingly high costs for imports while cutting off home grown manufacturing built with terrific job growth. Where is the sense in that? And Musk has informed the working class and middle class that they will be paying the price for this “economic program”, not the billionaires. No, the billionaires would get $3.5 million more each year in tax cuts.
It all just boggles the mind.
I live in Rensselaer County, east of Albany. I believe strongly in supporting local newspapers. So I subscribed to the Schenectady Daily Gazette, the Troy Record, and the Albany Times Union. Each paper has printed items I disagree with. Sometimes I write a letter to the editor and express my displeasure. But when the Gazette endorsed Elise Stefanik, I blew a gasket and cancelled my subscription.
I also want to support national news so I subscribe to the Washington Post and The NY Times. But when Bezos flipped us all off with the non-endorsement, another gasket blew and I cancelled my WaPo subscription.
I’m still not sure I did the right thing. Either time. Did my cancelling the WaPo subscription contribute to the laying off of a young new talented journalist? Worse, did my cancelling of the Gazette contribute to the shuttering of an entire department?
These are not rhetorical questions. I really am asking for your thoughts.
I fully understand why someone would cancel their subscription to a local or national paper over their endorsement policies. It can be a satisfying way to express one’s dissatisfaction with a newspaper.
Before I would do that, though, I’d take a close look at the paper’s reporting and answer a few questions for myself. Do I value the work of the reporters and editors? Would I miss it if I no longer subscribed? Am I affecting the financial viability of a newspaper that may be struggling already? Is the paper worth reading?
These are questions only the subscribers can answer.
I think a bigger question is the facts behind the endorsment. In the Post and LA Times case, the owner made the call not the editorial board. That's what I want to know. Who made the call? If it's the editorial board, I can live with that.
The fact that some 200,000 people canceled their subscriptions certainly got their attention.
But the responsibility does not lie with you, the customer. The responsibility lies with the owner. And the owner is somewhere within the top 5 billionaires in the U.S. It is laudable that you ponder that loss of employment. It's telling that Bezos and the LA Times's owner don't consider it.
That's the thing. Newspapers are a very different business where the customer is not always right. Newspapers are supposed to do what is in the best interest of the average citizen, its business be damned. Had a lot of fights with out advertising department over that one.
I wonder if it's a matter of how close by the owner is. The reports are that WaPo's editorial board had their endorsement of Harris already set for print and Bezos said no. And he did it to curry favor with Trump. It looks like you had the authority to print what you saw fit without Lee interfering and that is a great situation if you have to be owned by an outside owner who doesn't butt in. That's just my opinion, of course.
Isn't it pleasant to disagree cordially? Yours is the inside experience while I take a very dim view of monopoly wannabe corporations. We desperately need a muscular DoJ to go back to trust busting. That alone would help increase employment. Out of state mega corporations have a way of following the bean counters to find cheaper costs, including labor costs, taxes, environmental regs, etc. and picking up sticks and moving elsewhere in the US or foreign countries.
The quote “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind” applies to newspaper subscriptions, shoes/clothing items that don’t fit, relationships etc. 🤔
You can always restart your subscriptions at another time, Bridget!”
(Next week if tRump loses!)
I stopped my Amazon Prime membership in protest last week. I intend to shop “local” more often from here on to support our local economy.
I thought the same thing. How many employees of WaPo will lose their jobs because of all the subscription cancellations.
Likely too many.
I think you did the right thing. Why should you help support the opposition?
Glad to hear our GF Football team is on its way to the finals...HOWEVER, I wish to post this question??? does a football championship warrant School taxes that are 30% higher than property taxes???? It's something to consider.
As someone who loves sports, spent 20 years in the newspaper sports department, it's not the money that bothers me, it is the attitude among parents their start athletes are all going to get Div. 1 scholarships. It is a very small number that get that. I'd prefer that the really good athletes get involved in club sports as they do in many places in Europe instead of hjigh school sports. Academic investment much wiser for the long haul.
Thank you, Ken, for this wandering wonderful Front Page traveling from flags, to who we worship, to sports, to penguins, to the Chapman's wine and chocolate, and ending with that excellent quote by Maureen Dowd. So just to say I have a huge Earth flag and small peace prayer flags in different languages all blowing in the wind...and signs about the climate crisis and code red, and General Eisenhower's wise words "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the vital sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed"...along with political signs about Prop One and candidates I support. Clearly I and we need to give voice to what we feel and believe. And this is an "apology": On October 22, I sent a letter to the Chronicle. When it wasn't printed that week, I assumed it wouldn't be and sent it to you because I felt so strongly about the need to question, to reflect on our deeper values. You kindly printed it. On October 31 Mark Frost printed that letter with many other opinion pieces. I appreciated that both you and the Chronicle allow different voices in our community to be heard. May we all question, speak what is true, and act for our common good. Thank you, Ken, for your good voice.
Really good piece!
Thanks, Ken. Like your comment, “We all define ourselves in different ways,” and I would add, and some of us in ways more different than others.
Also, thanks for focusing on the danger of raising ANY politician “to the level of a deity.”
As the Good Book says (even the $69 Trump edition), “You shall have no other gods before me.”
I don’t want celebrity leaders/politicians. I want servant leaders/politicians. Jesus said, “I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life …for others.”
I apologize if this sounds a bit “preachy” but it’s an occupational hazard.
“Four years ago, a Queensbury resident on Aviation Road attached a home-made sign to his fence proclaiming that Trump is still the president.
The sign has shown wear and tear over those four years.”
That seems like an apt metaphor for Trump himself. I love seeing one of his flags faded and torn hanging off someone’s house. Hopefully soon that’ll be just enough of a reminder.
I had a Methodist flag hanging next to my porch for awhile, but the red in the flame got too faded so I took it down.
It’s interesting that neither Glens Falls newspapers mentioned the GF-Green Tech football game. I’m told it was a nasty affair on both sides. Perhaps better that way since it boiled down to the privileged team against the inner city team whose potentially better life experience is the game.
I did not necessarily witness anything ugly until the four consecutive unsportsmanlike calls at the end of the game. I'm guessing the refs were taking some abuse.
Unfortunately there were some ugly comments toward Green Tech from the GF spectators as the game was called.
I left a few minutes before the game was called so I did not see any of that.
This link is from another blog I subscribe to. An actual physician's experience/viewpoint at this point.
Very good post!!
https://johnrochatnorcal.substack.com/p/vote-because-everyones-life-depends?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2081740&post_id=151142037&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=b9ign&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Very riveting review of this Drs. personal experiences with complicated OB cases…and worsening scenarios across our country with so many states’ restrictive OB-GYN emergency interventions. Thanks Maggie.
Interesting articles. May everyone get out to vote this important election year.
Well said. 🤞
Well stated, Ken Tingley and Maureen Dowd!!