Selling the Washington Post confirms the foreshadowing of
the demise of daily newspapers as we have known them. Only the day before the
owner of the Boston Red Socks bought the Boston Globe.
Jeffrey Bezos, the
billionaire who is the sole owner under the new set up, said that the Post may
no longer be printed 20 years down the road. As someone who made his billions
from the Internet, he should know.
Only waiting will
show what he has in mind for the paper, which he will oversee from the “left
coast.”
Internet growth reduced newspaper readership. When
readership decreased, the advertising cash cow started showing its ribs. News
holes shrank, lessening the value of the product, exacerbating the decline.
Washington, one would think, might slip the noose because politicians live on
news. The sale of the Post seems to put the lie to that notion.
One thing seems
true: decreased profitability of newspapering has been detrimental to the
fundamental job of a free press in a democratic republic. Our First Amendment
recognized the right of a free press to keep tabs on government authorized by the
people. Money is needed to pay reporters to have time to pursue leads about
misfeasance and malfeasance by governmental officials. Fewer ads mean fewer
acts of due diligence on the part of the press.
Charges that
partisanship deters the press from protecting the governed are easy to make.
But Pulitzers are won more readily chasing evildoers rather than saints.
A healthy press depends
upon healthy profits. Only free enterprise can provide a free press; a
government press cannot by definition.
A billionaire paying
for truthful reporting could be a blessing. And perhaps that’s what Bezos will
try. He already is spending money on a clock within a mountain that is supposed
to be accurate for 10,000 years. But maybe that is easier to achieve than a
vigorous press.
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