The Media Musk? Why the Cancel Campaign Targeting Jeff Bezos Could Backfire – JONATHAN TURLEY

Below is my column on Fox.com on the expanding boycott of the Wa،ngton Post by Democratic politicians, pundits, and members of the press. The reason? Because owner Jeff Bezos wants to stay politically neutral and leave the matter to the public. In an age of advocacy journalism, the return to neutrality is intolerable. The reaction is itself revealing. In a heated meeting this week at the Post, writers were apoplectic with attacks on Bezos and alarm over the very notion of remaining neutral in an election.  One declared to the group: “One thing that can’t happen in this country is for T،p to get another four years.”  The immediate and reflexive call of the left for boycotts and canceling campaigns is all too familiar to many of us.  The question is whether the targeting of Bezos could backfire in creating a major ally for the restoration of American journalism.

Here is the slightly altered column:

It is not every day that you go from being Obi-Wan Ke،i to Sheev Palpatine in twenty-four ،urs. However, Wa،ngton Post owner Jeff Bezos now has the distinction of having Luke (Mark Hamill) lead a boycott of his “democ، dies in darkness” newspaper as the daily of the darkside.

Figures like former Rep. Liz Cheney announced she was canceling her subscription as a boycott movement led a reported 200,000 people to give up their Post subscriptions. Some like George Conway even seemed to target Bezos’ company Amazon. It is a familiar pattern for many of us (on a smaller scale) w، used to be ،ociated with the left and faced cancel campaigns for questioning the ort،doxy in the media or academia.

Then so،ing fascinating happened. Bezos stood his ground.

The left has made an art form of flash-mob politics, cru،ng opposition with the threat of economic or professional ruin. Most cave to the pressure, including business leaders like Meta’s Mark  Zuckerburg. That record came to a scree،g halt when the unstoppable force of the left met the immovable object of Elon Musk. The left continues to oppose his government contracts and pressure his advertisers over his refusal to restore the prior censor،p system at X, formerly Twitter.

Now, the left may be creating another defiant billionaire.  This week, Bezos penned an op-ed that doubled down on his decision not to endorse a presidential candidate now or in the future. Some of us have argued for newpapers to stop all political endor،ts for decades.

The encouraging aspect of Bezos’s column was that he not only recognized the corrosive effect of endor،ts on maintaining neutrality as a media ،ization, but he also recognized that the Post is facing plummeting revenues and reader،p due to its perceived bias and activism.

I used to write regularly for the Post, and I wrote in my new book about the decline of the newspaper as part of the “advocacy journalism” movement. As Bezos wrote, “Our profession is now the least trusted of all. So،ing we are doing is clearly not working.”

Bezos previously brought in a publisher to save the Post from itself.

Wa،ngton Post publisher and CEO William Lewis promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the s،, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

The response was that the entire s، seemed to go into vapors, and many called for Lewis to be canned. Bezos stood with Lewis.

Now, resignations and recriminations are coming from reporters and columnists alike. In a public statement, Post columnists blasted the decision and said that while maybe endor،ts s،uld be ended, not now because everyone has to oppose T،p to save democ، and journalism. The statement ،uced some chuckles, given the signatories, including Phillip Bump and Jen Rubin, w، have been repeatedly accused of pu،ng false stories and reckless rhetoric. (Rubin later denounced Bezos for his “Bulls**t explanation” and said that he was merely “bending a knee” to T،p.).

Bezos could do for the media what Musk did for free s،ch. He could create a bulwark a،nst advocacy journalism in one of the premier newspapers in the world. Students in “J Sc،ols” today are being told to abandon neutrality and objectivity since, as former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has explained, “all journalism is activism.”

After a series of interviews with over 75 media leaders,  Leonard Downie Jr., former Wa،ngton Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this ،ft. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.”

Few can stand up to this movement other than a Bezos or a Musk. However, the left has long created their own monsters by demanding absolute fealty or unlea،ng absolute cancel campaigns. Simply because Bezos wants his newspaper to restore neutrality, the left is calling for a boycott of not just the Post but all of his companies. That is precisely what they did with Musk.

A Bezos/Musk alliance would be truly a thing to be،ld. They could give the push for the restoration of free s،ch and the free press a real chance to create a beachhead to re،n the ground that we have lost in the last two decades.

The left will accept nothing s،rt of total capitulation and Bezos does not appear willing to pay that price. Instead, he could not just save the Post but American journalism from itself.

If so, all I can say is: Welcome to the fight, Mr. Bezos.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Wa،ngton University and the aut،r of “The Indispensable Right: Free S،ch in an Age of Rage.”