CNN’s very own Anderson Cooper and newly-rehired Brian Stelter got together and, in an exchange devoid of fundamental self-awareness, chided Jeff Bezos for pulling the plug on endorsements at The Washington Post. The two went right to the line of accusing Bezos of improprieties, with a hysterical Stelter suggesting that this is the beginning of autocracy.
Below is video of that full exchange (click “expand” to view transcript):
CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360
10/28/24
8:56 PM
ANDERSON COOPER: More breaking news tonight: Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is defending his decision that the paper not endorse a presidential candidate this year. This, as thousands of Washington Post readers canceling their subscriptions and at least three members of their editorial board quit over the move. Tonight, Bezos wrote an op-ed for the paper with the headline, quote, “The hard truth: Americans don't trust the news media- a note from our owner.” Bezos argues and I quote, “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.” He adds, what presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one.” Joining us with more, CNN Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter. It's interesting that he wrote this, you know, “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.”
BRIAN STELTER: Right.
COOPER: Is that what this is about?
STELTER: For Bezos, it might be. And this might be the right decision., but at the wrong time. And he acknowledged this in his note tonight. By the way, I've never seen him write an essay like this. It's a reaction to the unprecedented pressure the Post is under. But I think he wrote this tonight because tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of subscribers have bailed on the Post in the past few days. Even more might do it in the days to come out of a fear that he's capitulating to Donald Trump, that he's giving in to Trump. Bezos is saying that's not the case. He's doing this and says principled decision, but he's doing it on the eve of an election. And that's really the issue at the heart of this. He acknowledges maybe he had some poor timing, maybe he should have announced this earlier, but he's doing it because he wants to win back people's trust over time. In the short-term, though, he's lost a lot of his audience's trust.
COOPER: The- he also wrote, “there's no quid pro quo of anytime or there's- no quid-pro-quo of any kind is at work here.” That's a quote. The head of his Blue Origin had met with Trump, apparently, on the day the announcement was made, he says he didn't know about that meeting and it was an unfortunate…
STELTER: Total coincidence, that’s right. A person close to Bezos says, no, there's nothing to do with it. There's no quid pro quo. Here's the thing: there's hard pressure, a quid pro quo, a deal with Trump, and then there's a form of soft pressure. And the real concern I'm hearing from Post reporters, from editors, from columnists, is it that- the form of soft pressure being applied here. The author of On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder, has talked for years about the idea of obeying in advance. That in democracies that are sliding toward autocracies, people try to obey in advance. That wealthy businessmen, the media leaders, that powerful people start to give in to the aspiring authoritarian whims in advance. And that's exactly the concern that exists here. In fact, Snyder came out over the weekend, said that's what he thinks is happening at The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times.
COOPER: Has Bezos said who he would vote for in this election?
STELTER: He has not. But the paper under Bezos, when he owned the paper, did endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016, and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. Strangely, Anderson, the paper actually endorsed the Maryland Senate Democrat candidate for the Senate just four weeks ago. So
this sudden change in endorsement, it's the timing that's created such controversy.
COOPER: The owner of The Los Angeles Times sudden not to endorse as well.
STELTER: Yes. And there's been the same kind of fallout. Not quite as many subscriber losses, but there as well, more than 10,000 subscribers canceling subscriptions. Basically an active protest. The only kind of protest that an audience member can have if you're paying for a publication that you can back out and the fear at both The L.A. Times and The Washington Post is the same. That these owners are giving in to pressure from Trump ahead of the election, expecting that he will win. It's interesting Bezos cites of former editor or owner, I think, of The Washington Post back, I think, decades and decades ago as somebody who didn't want there to be endorsements.
COOPER: Right.
STELTER: And this is true 50, 60 years ago, the Post did not endorse. But in modern history thePost has. More importantly, for a lot of the Post columnists, the opinion writers, they don't believe it is as important to endorse Harris as it is to condemn Donald Trump. They believe Trump is a threat to the American free press, and that he will impose draconian restrictions. And those fears are palpable in other newsrooms as well. I think that's why this story has resonated so wide and so far. But Bezos, he's saying he's trying to do the right thing, trying to restore trust in the media.
COOPER: Brian Stelter. Thanks so much.
STELTER: Right.
It is interesting that Stelter gets trotted out to talk about compliance here. STELTER, of all people, who did everything demanded of him by Jeff Zucker, no matter how ridiculous and over the top, which contributed in no small part to the absolute cratering of CNN’s ratings, which continues to this day.
That cratering bolsters the Bezos argument that underlies this segment, which is that no one trusts the media anymore. To put a finer point on it, people no longer trust the Regime Media.
Thus, we witness Cooper but mostly Stelter fueling conspiratorial talk about quid pro quo and about the supposed chilling of speech, and of voluntary compliance ahead of the incoming Trump Dictatorship. A more serious CNN would have contemplated the reasons underlying the public’s loss of trust in the media. “Democracy died” both in bias by omission and bias by commission.
Bezos, at least, was honest enough to recognize this- even if his newsroom and their peers at CNN have not.
