Larry Smith
Recently, two of the nation’s most venerable and well-respected newspapers, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, decided not to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election.
Those decisions have been largely met with derision and disappointment, primarily because the assumption is that the papers’ owners are concerned about retaliation from Donald Trump should he prevail next week.
This turn of events is surprising given the wealth, power, and notoriety of the papers’ owners. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, bought the Post in 2012. On any given day, Bezos is in the top three of four of the richest people in the world — one of the handful of people for whom the term “centibillionaire” was coined.
Patrick Soon-Shion is a South African and American national who is of Chinese lineage. A medical doctor by training, Soon-Shiong is also a billionaire tech investor who bought the Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2018 via his investment firm. (He sold the latter paper last year.)
In the aftermath of the Post’s decision, it was revealed that executives from the paper had met with Donald Trump shortly after the paper declined to endorse. The implications of such...
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