stupid is as stupid does.
He even admits it....

1) More confirmation Bezos caved to Trump pressure. Link below.
2) As for the LA Times, this NY Times article suggests no pressure from Trump but that politics was involved.
Warning: this is a long one.
"As the nation counted down this fall to a bitterly polarized election, the editorial board of The Los Angeles Times drew up a detailed outline for an endorsement that seemed obvious for an institution that had leaned liberal for generations: Vice President Kamala Harris should be the next president of the United States.

A California native and resident of Los Angeles, Ms. Harris was not only a unifying and inspiring generational figure, in the board members’ view, but also an important bulwark between Donald J. Trump and democratic institutions. They were unaware, however, that a different and more powerful group had been meeting — the family of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the newspaper’s owner — with far different plans for the newspaper’s voice.

This week, the biotech billionaire who had bought the paper in 2018 for $500 million acted on those plans with scant internal or public explanation, abruptly vetoing the planned endorsement, informing the board through an intermediary that The Los Angeles Times would make no recommendation in the presidential race.

For days, readers in overwhelmingly liberal Southern California speculated angrily about a decision that was widely regarded as a favor to Mr. Trump and a vote of no confidence in Ms. Harris.Thousands of readers canceled subscriptions. Three members of the editorial board resigned. Nearly 200 staff members signed an open letter to management demanding an explanation, complaining that the decision this close to the election had undermined the news organization’s trust with readers. The Times’s News Guild, the newsroom’s union, lodged a protest. In social media posts and subsequent interviews with his own news organization, Dr. Soon-Shiong framed the choice as an attempt at neutrality.

But in a statement on Saturday that was swiftly challenged by the paper, his daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, 31, a progressive political activist who has frequently been accused of trying to meddle in the paper’s news coverage, said the decision was motivated by Ms. Harris’s continued support for Israel in its war in Gaza.

“Our family made the joint decision not to endorse a Presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I have been involved in the process,” Ms. Soon-Shiong, who has no formal role at the paper, said in a statement to The New York Times. “As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African Apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.”In a statement, Dr. Soon-Shiong said the daughter did not speak for the paper.

“Nika speaks in her own personal capacity regarding her opinion, as every community member has the right to do,” the owner said, according to a spokeswoman. “She does not have any role at The L.A. Times, nor does she participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, as has been made clear many times.”The editor of editorials, who was among those who have resigned, said she was taken aback by the daughter’s assertion.  

“If that was the reason that Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris, it was not communicated to me or the editorial writers,” Mariel Garza, who resigned on Tuesday, said in a statement. “If the family’s goal was to ‘repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,’ remaining silent did not accomplish that.”

Over the past six years, writers and editors have increasingly chafed at interference by Dr. Soon-Shiong, 72, and his family in the newsroom, where owners are generally regarded less as proprietors with the right to impose their personal views than as guardians of a public trust.

In January, Kevin Merida stepped down as executive editor after clashing with Dr. Soon-Shiong over an unpublished article about an acquaintance of the newspaper owner, as well as other conflicts in the newsroom. Just a few weeks later, the publication carried out its most widespread layoffs in more than a decade, cutting 115 journalists in a move that slashed the newsroom by more than 20 percent.
But the dispute over the endorsement — echoed two days later when The Washington Post announced that it would also not make an endorsement in the race — prompted urgent new questions about what had motivated the decision.
Speaking this week on the cable news outlet Spectrum, which regularly carries Los Angeles Times content, Dr. Soon-Shiong was asked about a possible political motivation. “I want us desperately to air all the voices on the opinion side, on the op-ed side,” he said. He said he did not know whether readers viewed him or his family as ultra-progressive or not. “But I’m an independent.”

In an interview with one of his own reporters on Friday, Dr. Soon-Shiong said that his stand was not based on any single issue, nor did he intend by withholding an endorsement to favor either Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump. “We should be an organization that stands up and says the facts,” presenting views across the political spectrum, he said. “I think that the country needs that desperately.”

Several senior editors at The Times said they were not briefed on the reasons for Dr. Soon-Shiong’s decision, but they noted that he had often been critical of the Biden administration, had boasted of having dinner with Mr. Trump after he won the presidency in 2016 and often has approvals pending with the federal Food and Drug Administration. They speculated that he may have been hedging his bets over a range of issues.

One person potentially in a position to know was the publication’s current executive editor, Terry Tang, who replaced Mr. Merida. In a departure from the practice at most major news organizations, which have a clear organizational separation between news and opinion, Ms. Tang, who had been the publication’s editorial page editor, took on oversight of both departments when she became the executive editor. Ms. Tang previously served as an editor at The New York Times for 20 years.

Ms. Tang did not respond to requests for comment and did not appear to have addressed the staff over the issue.
Mariel Garza, the editorials editor who resigned, said that she had been caught completely off guard. Dr. Soon-Shiong, she said, had been told in late September that the board planned to endorse Ms. Harris, an unsurprising choice given The Times’s past criticism of Mr. Trump and its generally liberal editorial stances. Ms. Harris, who is originally from the Bay Area, has been married for more than a decade to a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, Doug Emhoff, and has kept a home in the upscale West Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood.

Ms. Garza said she became increasingly concerned as weeks passed without approval of the endorsement from the owner. Two weeks ago, she said, she learned from Ms. Tang that Dr. Soon-Shiong had decided against issuing an endorsement. She said Ms. Tang told her that he had not given a clear rationale for the decision.

Ms. Garza, who was the first to resign on the editorial board, said she felt no choice but to leave.

He's going to lose all his subscribers who want a liberal echo chamber.  And he will lose all his "journalists" who want to pontificate in a liberal echo chamber.  So he will be starting from scratch and will have to finance it out of his own pocket.
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But if the deep state does not subscribe, it is just howling at the moon.

Even Musk has fallen in line. The media has pretty much turned into the trump propaganda ring, afraid to hurt the delicate ego of Trump.
Can’t say bad things about Trump or else … so kiss all this free speech bullshit to the curb

-- Modified on 10/30/2024 4:28:55 PM