Listener supported WNYC Studios.

WNYC Studios.

It's the Brian Marysau on WNYC.

Good morning, everyone.

Well, the big news from the Washington Post yesterday was about the Washington Post.

The owner, Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon, in case you've been away for a few decades,

officially declared that the opinion pages in the post will now publish, quote,

every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties, and free markets.

I'll read that again.

In support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets.

And he wrote, viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

He went on to write part of his rationale for this change.

Quote, there was a time when newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have

seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion

section that sought to cover all views. Today, the intern-in, a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section

that sought to cover all views. Today, the Internet does that job, unquote, from Jeff Bezos.

Now, obviously, this has sparked a firestorm of reaction in the worlds of journalism,

economics, and politics. And of course, it comes after the Post

infamously canceled the endorsement of Kamala Harris for president that their editorial

board had been planning to make. Now, after arguing that it should not choose sides on presidential

candidates in order to be seen as independent, the paper is declaring forcefully that it will choose sides

every day, in Bezos's words,

...