CSotD: Episode 5844
Skip to comments
As DD Degg reported the other day, the ridiculously deep cuts at the Washington Post are making most observers feel that either Jeff Bezos is a raving incompetent or he has lost interest in the toy he bought and never quite figured out.
Goris is far from the only one to capitalize on the slogan Bezos came up with back when he gave a damn, but I like the simplicity and clean lines.
I also like the fact that the hand hasn’t quite pulled the cord but is poised to, because the Post is still there for the moment, though killing the Metro section will likely drive off local readers and killing off Sports is either a stupid move or a deliberate case of hari-kari.
I edited two newspapers that came out twice a week and while I had a skeletal reporting staff — three at one paper, one at the other — we still had a sports editor at each because our owners were not consciously attempting to go out of business.
Those papers sold something under 2,000 copies per issue and it’s possible Bezos is aiming for similar figures.
Some people still subscribe in order to support the reporters, but, at this point, that’s like staying aboard to support the band as they play “Nearer My God To Thee.”
What he’s aiming for, obviously, is praise from Dear Leader and if he loses money at the newspaper, he’ll make it up by having his good friend toss a few contracts at his space company. Lord knows he won’t get Trump to buy books from Amazon, and he doesn’t seem likely to profit from home movies of the First Lady.
I like the artistry in this piece, but calling it the “Amazon Post” steers it wide of the mark, because — the Melania movie aside — Bezos doesn’t run Amazon at a loss. I remember when it was only a bookstore, and people scoffed and said he’d be out of business within a year or two.
Amazon’s success is proof that what he’s doing to the Post, he’s doing on purpose. It’s easy to look at Trump’s track record of bankruptcies, failures and foolish business moves and write him off as a wastrel and a nitwit, but Bezos hasn’t made a dumb move yet.
Despicable, maybe, but not dumb.
It is a damn shame, considering what the Post once meant to the nation, and the world, and what its betrayal by Bezos signals to the nation and the world.
In 1992, I was at a convention in Washington, and we were given a tour of the Post. We went into a conference room that had a wall covered with quotes about the paper, and I said to myself, “I know one they won’t have up there.” However, there it was:
Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published. — John Mitchell
It wasn’t that they purposefully went after Nixon. It was that they reported the news, and didn’t let his bullies turn them aside. The book and the movie necessarily compress some details, but they tell the story and they inspired a generation of journalists who were not just willing to withstand the occasional threats, but willing to face the routine tedium of digging in search of the facts.
And who hoped to work for a publisher like Katherine Graham who was never known as “Katie” and who was never known to back down.
I got to work for a pretty good publisher, until our paper was sold to vulture capitalists who immediately began pulling it apart. Then one day they ordered cuts that he wasn’t willing to make, so he packed up and left and they brought in an android who made the cuts. And more cuts. And more cuts.
Some days after work, I’d stop by my boss’s office and we’d shake our heads over the latest diktat from Corporate. When I found another job and gave him my two-weeks notice, he grinned, shook my hand and congratulated me on my escape.
About a month and a half later, they awarded him the cardboard box and while it put his family in a tough spot for a while, he welcomed it as a relief.
“People speak of misfortunes and sufferings,” remarked Pierre, “but if at this moment I were asked: ‘Would you rather be what you were before you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?’ then for heaven’s sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.” — War and Peace, Epilogue
And then there’s this:
There was once a time when the Comic Strip of the Day really was a single comic strip. That was 16 years ago, and, as you see, I was considerably more terse in the first of what is now 5,844 posts, which is how many days it’s been; I haven’t missed one yet.
Well, I missed two weeks of them in 2016, when I took time off for cancer surgery, but Brian Fies filled in to keep the streak alive, on the assumption that the surgeon was doing the same for me.
I moved things here in 2018 and Alan Gardner is in the final steps of adding my previous work to the Daily Cartoonist archives. He’ll make an announcement when it’s fully in place, but he’s putting in a lot of work on the project, as you can imagine.
Combining Today’s Topics:
As short-sighted capitalists and changing media habits drive newspapers down, comic strips are in danger of going with them. Join me in promoting, and hoping to save, comics:
- Subscribe to cartoonists’ Substacks, and be a paying member of your favorites. And join GoComics and Comics Kingdom.
- When someone posts a strip on social media, “like” it to help increase its reach.
- Cartoonists, be on social media, and if you have a Substack, update faithfully. And check the places your work should be, to make sure it is updated and properly formatted.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 16
Comments are closed.