In the battle between journalistic integrity and keeping Trump happy enough to leave Amazon alone, guess which one the world's second-richest man chose?
In her essay for The New Yorker, veteran Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus reveals she's quitting after 40 years because owner Jeff Bezos has decided that pesky "range of opinions" thing was getting in the way of his newfound friendship with Trump.
The drama began when Bezos announced the Post would focus on "personal liberties and free markets" and that "viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others." Which is billionaire-speak for "opinions I don't like are no longer welcome here."
When Marcus wrote a column questioning this brilliant new strategy, the Post's publisher Will Lewis killed it. Nothing says "we value personal liberties" quite like suppressing columns about valuing personal liberties!
"Will's decision to not run the column that I wrote respectfully dissenting from Jeff's edict—something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing—underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded," Marcus wrote.
After 40 years, 6 months, and 6 days at the Post (but who's counting?), Marcus has had enough. "I love the Post. It breaks my heart to conclude that I must leave."
Meanwhile, Bezos has been busy dining at Mar-a-Lago, donating to Trump's inauguration, and buying Melania's documentary for a cool $40 million.
On December 12th, Amazon said that it would follow Meta's lead and donate a million dollars to Trump's Inauguration. On December 18th, Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, dined with Trump and Melania at Mar-a-Lago, joined by Elon Musk. "In this term, everybody wants to be my friend," Trump observed. He had reason to think as much. On January 5th, Amazon announced that it had bought the rights to a documentary about Melania, co-produced by Melania herself. Puck's Matthew Belloni reported that the streaming service was paying forty million dollars to license the film—reportedly the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary, and almost three times the highest competing bid. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania stood to pocket more than seventy per cent of that fee—and that, at the Mar-a-Lago dinner, Melania "regaled" Bezos and Sánchez with details about the project.
Remember, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" works great as a slogan until your billionaire owner turns off the lights.
Previously:
• The Bezos biopic is as boring as the man who inspired it
• Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigns from The Washington Post when her cartoon criticizing Bezos is killed
• A maniacal Bezos plots for world dominance with vulva-shaped space station in hilarious new sketch
• Jeff Bezos announces Washington Post to promote 'personal liberties and free markets'
• Amazon's Jeff Bezos proclaims support for Black Lives Matter
