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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30024 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Huh? I think this is entirely consistent with what Yarvin lays out. The owner of the LA Times was unable to make the paper print what he wants. He was only able to prevent it from printing what he doesn’t want. This can always be trivially accomplished by firing everyone and closing the paper, which Yarvin readily concedes that Bezos would be able to do with the Washington Post. Indeed, the editorial chief of the LA Times did in fact, “laugh at him and quit.”

Actually he didn’t even get that. He lost. The story isn’t “LA Times didn’t endorse Kamala.” The story is “The (evil) owner of the LA Times didn’t let them tell people they endorsed Kamala.” Which is a back door way of the LA Times endorsing Kamala (within days of whatever editorial the LAT was told not to publish) with the added insult that they got to say that the owner of the LAT was pushing for an outcome and that they the “responsible journalists” were pushing for The Truth. So not only did they get to endorse her, but they got to discredit the owner, and paint themselves as brave truth telling journalists in the process.

To reiterate, the OP quoted Yarvin as stating "there is no way [Bezos] can use the Post." Vetoing a specific news article or editorial absolutely counts as "using".

I haven't see any indication that the owner of the LA Times wants Trump to be endorsed, only that he wanted the paper to be neutral on this, which he got. One person laughing at him and quitting is not what Yarvin was talking about. He was talking about the whole news room quitting, which didn't happen.

Reading the Yarvin quote, do you really think he is making a nuanced point of "Bezos can tell WaPo to not cover something and a few people might quit, but it will otherwise work. But, he can't tell them to cover something they don't want to cover. They'd all quit in that case"? No, he says pretty plainly, "there is no way he can use the Post" and what the LA Times owner did sure looks like him using the LA Times.

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