Some billionaires are often not optimal societal bedfellows
- sciart0
- Mar 30
- 1 min read
Excerpt: "He summoned memories of Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, who warned that the legendary publisher Katharine Graham was “gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer” if the Post published one of its Watergate stories.
“While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer,” Bezos wrote to the paper’s anxious journalists in August 2013, “if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready.”
I led the newsroom at the time Bezos bought the Post. For a long while, he fulfilled his promise to the paper and its readers, exceeding my expectations. Then he faltered badly.
Now we know that Bezos is no Katharine Graham.
It has been sad and unnerving to watch Bezos fall so terribly short of her standard as he confronts the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
It’s been infuriating to observe the damage he has inflicted in recent months on the reputation of a newspaper whose investigative reporting has served as a bulwark against Trump’s most transgressive impulses."