[placardloop]

The title makes it seem like this is a major or systemic issue, but the article content essentially says this was a one-off, potentially a mistaken omission that was fixed within 24 hours. The article itself even states that the Post routinely discloses its ties to Bezos in its reporting and this was an anomaly. I used to read the Post (I’m not a subscriber anymore) but I do distinctly remember seeing such a disclosure all over the place. Is this an attempt at outrage clicks?

Edit: people saying I didn’t read the article apparently didn’t read it themselves. From the article:

> The Post has resolutely revealed such entanglements to readers of news coverage or commentary in the past … since 2013, those of Bezos, who founded Amazon and Blue Origin. Even now, the newspaper's reporters do so as a matter of routine.

So at minimum the article disagrees with itself, but it seems the outrage bait is working hook line and sinker.

Edit 2: To try and be a little clearer here: the article is trying to (but in my opinion doing a really poor job of) make a distinction between the disclosures that the non-editorial WaPo authors do, and the disclosures that the editorial authors do, with the assertion that the editorial authors are worse at it.

[afavour]

The article does not say this was a one-off:

> On at least three occasions in the past two weeks

Bezos announced a relaunch of the Opinion section earlier in the year, I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if there has been a policy change. Three times in two weeks is a lot.

> potentially a mistaken omission that was fixed within 24 hours

potentially, yes. Responsible news organizations post correction notices when they make an omission like this, but WaPo did not (despite having a history of doing so, again, a notable change in practice)

[terminalshort]

In journalism you can safely assume that the truth is the absolute minimum claim that can possibly fit with the exact words used.

[tpmoney]

Do Editorial and Opinion sections of news papers do "conflict of interest" disclosures as a matter of course? It seems like it should be assumed that an Opinion article is expressly a biased article, written by someone with an interest in the topic at hand. If the NY Times wrote an editorial on schools or on medicaid, I wouldn't really expect to see a line disclosing the number of editorial staff members with children in the school systems or with family members receiving medicaid.

And this is an honest question, I don't know what the WP standard for their Editorial and Opinion pages were prior to Bezos' ownership, nor what the broader industry standard was before say 2016.

[HillRat]

Even now, the newspaper's reporters do so as a matter of routine.

Reporting and editorial are separate units in newspapers; the point being made is that, while reporting continues to properly disclose potential ownership conflicts of interest, editorial and op-ed, following Bezos taking direct control of them, are not doing so.

Of course, the Post is Bezos' toy, and there's no law that says he can't use editorial as a megaphone for his personal interests without disclosing them (or, in fact, even use the reporting side for the same purpose!), but you can't do that and still claim that the paper has any of the Grahams' pedigree left in it, and this is very much a change from Bezos' earlier ownership, in which he largely stayed hands-off on editorial decisions.

[overfeed]

Not only does gp seem to have a poor grasp on the differences between Opinion and news reporting, they also fail to correlate the problem with Bezos' ownership, so it seems to them like NPRs article is conflicting with itself when it isn't, in the slightest.

[arusahni]

There are two additional recent ones mentioned in the article:

> On Oct. 15, the Post heralded the military's push for a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors. "No 'microreactor' currently operates in the United States, but it's a worthy gamble that could provide benefits far beyond its military applications," the Post wrote in its editorial.

> A year ago, Amazon bought a stake in X-energy to develop small nuclear reactors to power its data centers. And through his own private investment fund, Bezos has a stake in a Canadian venture seeking nuclear fusion technology.

and

> Three days after the nuclear power editorial, the Post weighed in on the need for local authorities in Washington, D.C., to speed the approval of the use of self-driving cars in the nation's capital. The editorial was headlined: "Why D.C. is stalling on self-driving cars: Safety is a phony excuse for slamming the brakes on autonomous vehicles."

> Fewer than three weeks before, the Amazon-owned autonomous car company Zoox had announced D.C. was to be its next market.

Edit to respond to your edit: these are the opinion pages, not reporting.

[xrd]

It doesn't appear that you read the article at all. It states the first disclosure was added later, and without comment. And there are two other mentions of conflict of interest. Nothing you wrote is true other than that you aren't a subscriber to the Post.

[HelloMcFly]

Respectfully, you either skimmed this article to support your point or didn't pay proper attention. I see no ambiguity in this article - none - whatsoever. This is about Bezos's changes to the WaPo opinion pages (including their opinion editorial board), a shift to topics that matter to Bezos, and a clear loss of discipline or intent in conflict of interest disclosures when discussing such topics.

[metabagel]

> The Post has resolutely revealed such entanglements to readers of news coverage or commentary in the past … since 2013, those of Bezos, who founded Amazon and Blue Origin. Even now, the newspaper's reporters do so as a matter of routine.

What this is saying:

- Previously, WaPo disclosed conflicts of interest.

- They still disclose in their news articles (as opposed to in their editorials).

> So at minimum the article disagrees with itself

No.

> Edit 2: To try and be a little clearer here: the article is trying to (but in my opinion doing a really poor job of) make a distinction between the disclosures that the non-editorial WaPo authors do, and the disclosures that the editorial authors do, with the assertion that the editorial authors are worse at it.

Everyone else seems to understand but you. By the way, "non-editorial WaPo authors" are called reporters or journalists.

[philipwhiuk]

> So at minimum the article disagrees with itself, but it seems the outrage bait is working hook line and sinker.

No, because they aren't doing so for Amazon and Blue. That's the entire point. Find an Amazon article with a disclosure on it.

[miltonlost]

The very second sentence of the article disproves your first sentence.

"On at least three occasions in the past two weeks, an official Post editorial has taken on matters in which Bezos has a financial or corporate interest without noting his stake. In each case, the Post's official editorial line landed in sync with its owner's financial interests."

So, no, this isn't one-off. You need to re-read the article more closely.

[unethical_ban]

It says the news section is more diligent and that the opinion pages/editorial are the ones omitting disclosures repeatedly.

And it wasn't fixed entirely - usually fixes to an article are declared in the article, and they didn't do that when they inserted the disclosure after the fact.