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by mrgalaxy 1705 days ago
> Bezos, who recently stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, also owns The Washington Post.

I like how they hide this statement several paragraphs into the article. Suddenly I have to ask if I am getting the entire story. Surely there is a better source for this story?

5 comments

It's a pretty negative article. What do you think they might be hiding? That things are even worse than described? If they were trying to hide something, they would have never drawn attention to this matter by killing the article in the first place.
Bezos may be using articles like this as an alternative to paying high priced consultants.

Also, maybe, if you don't want your behavior published in the Post, maybe don't behave that way in the first place.

Regardless of how impartial the journalism may be on the story, this does seem like something you'd put in a disclaimer at the top of the story.
It is at the top of the story. It isn't the very first sentence, but just eyeballing my scrollbar it's about 5% of the way in and before the meat of the reporting.

I'm not a journalist, by my understanding is that journalism uses an inverted pyramid rhetorical structure. You put the gist of the article first so people can quickly judge if they want to continue reading. Then you have the details. The disclaimer is after the condensed intro and immediately before this sentence, which begins their detailed reporting: "This account is based on interviews with more than 20 current and former Blue Origin employees and industry officials with close ties to the firm, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal."

I’d venture to bet WaPo has a left-leaning subscriber base that is at least somewhat critical of Bezos. They’re limited in how much astroturfing they can do versus a free newspaper that only relies on ads.
"Suddenly I have to ask if I am getting the entire story. Surely there is a better source for this story?"

Generally it's in good taste to declare ones business and ownership ties. For respected journalism this is not an obvious problem.

This is pretty much the story that's been going around in space news circles. It's not "news" news, just rehash of more or less "well known" facts. Mainstream media has not kept up that much with BO so that makes this article more poignant.

The Washington Post has been running negative stories about Bezos and his companies for a long while. They always include the disclaimer because that's what a responsible company would do.

Sorry you felt mislead that they included it in a place you didn't appreciate, but so far it doesn't seem like they are treating him with gloves.