I don't disagree, there is that Dutch saying that trust enters the town on foot and leaves on a horse. When the media's pursuit of financial incomes results in actions that actively destroy trust (the WaPo non-endorsement and unwillingness to present important points of view is the current poster child for this) then they simply become 'independent and untrusted' which is of not much use.
For me, a more sobering example was that Twitter was gaining trust and it seems that in response Elon Musk bought and killed it. That felt a bit more like actively denying the emergence of new media. It was also an example completely counter to Friedman's view on shareholder value as, as an action, it destroyed shareholder value. Just as Bezo's actions have destroyed shareholder value in the Washington Post.
I know people were outraged over the WaPo not endorsing anybody but personally I wish newspapers would drop most columnists and also stop endorsing. I subscribed to WaPo and WSJ for a year and reading the opinion columns was really bad for my mental state. You just get angry constantly. Now I am reading Reuters mostly and they are refreshingly boring in comparison
Would WaPo have stopped endorsing if it was set to endorse Bezos' favoured candidate? Of those that stopped endorsing, what's the ratio by candidate they would've endorsed? If only the outlets who were set to endorse candidate A stop doing so, but those for candidate B keep doing so, do you still consider this an improvement? From some philosophical PoV it might be, but in terms of real world consequences, I'm not sure how it can.
Some years ago, I decided that if I could read the headline and the byline and then at least summarize the column, there was no point in reading an opinion piece. This has saved a good deal of time and stress.
As other respondents to this wapo comment argue, dropping endorsement could be seen as net better. Can be argued a number of ways.
However, I think it's worth pointing out what goes on at root: distrust and/or seeing oneself as having being manipulated.
On this fulcrum the actual details, facts, intent etc is rendered irrelevant: if I feel the fool telling me 2+2=4 (a fact) will to me become more evidence of bs.
The only way out in the current environment is to not get caught up emotionally in non falsafible stories, stick to facts, and regard anything from news that's not communicating data, facts as entertainment.
As a subscriber to the (print) Post and steady reader, the decision not to endorse struck me as bizarrely coy. Day after day the A section was full of news articles that more or less labeled Donald Trump a fool, liar, and dangerous man. Yes, OK, so now why not endorse his opponent?
Increase trust by a last minute break with tradition forced by executives who then had their sibling rocket company (Blue Origin) go meet, the same day, with the candidate they just helped?
It's interesting how our perception of this can be so different. From my viewpoint, Twitter had completely lost all trust by actively silencing people they disagreed with. This got particularly bad around covid. I am not much of a Twitter/X user, but at least people aren't being silenced on a massive scale anymore.
I agree, it is interesting and that is kind of my point. What you're labeling as "perception" (not a bad label, just different) I tend to label "belief."
From your comment you clearly believe that Twitter had lost trust by "actively silencing people they disagreed with" whereas I, reading the reports that the trust and safety folks were putting out, felt like the policies they had in place to moderate people who they felt were not contributing to the conversation seemed to be rooted in reasonable principles. So we had two very different beliefs leading to very different viewpoints.
The original article that kicked this off talks exactly about this. Some people believe that the economy was "bad/weak", others believe that the economy is "good/strong". Two opposite viewpoints with presumably access to the same data!
Its a reasonable thing to engage in discussion with people who believe differently than you do to understand their point of view and what sources of data or evidence they base their beliefs on. To give a commonly cited example, one person would say "I believe the earth is roughly 6,000 years old based on my source which is the Bible." and another person might say, "I believe the earth is 4.5 billion years old, based on the idea of nuclear decay and carbon dating."
In examples like this, one can often quickly come to an assessment of whether or not it is worthwhile to re-examine one's own beliefs based on the other person's sources of evidence. It doesn't end up that you'll agree, just that you will understand why they believe what they believe.
For me, a more sobering example was that Twitter was gaining trust and it seems that in response Elon Musk bought and killed it. That felt a bit more like actively denying the emergence of new media. It was also an example completely counter to Friedman's view on shareholder value as, as an action, it destroyed shareholder value. Just as Bezo's actions have destroyed shareholder value in the Washington Post.