In a recent op-ed, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos noted that the media is now less trusted than Congress. “Something we are doing is clearly not working,” he wrote.
It was a refreshing admission that followed an uproar at the ultra-lefty Post over his decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. Naturally, most of the staff was hell-bent on supporting Kamala Harris, and some sputtered with rage by accusing Bezos of trying to curry favor with Donald Trump.
In his column, the owner rejected the charge while noting that endorsements “create a perception of bias . . . ending them is a principled decision.”
Bezos deserves credit for explaining his decision, but events demonstrate that he misdiagnoses the disease and vastly underestimates it.
The problem is not that the public believes the media is biased. The problem is that the media is biased.
The main evidence is not editorial endorsements or opinion columns labeled as such. The bias is revealed when supposedly straight-news articles are so one-sided as to be indistinguishable from propaganda.