{"id":191982,"date":"2021-06-04T22:35:41","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T22:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fair.org\/?p=9021840"},"modified":"2021-06-04T22:35:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T22:35:41","slug":"jeff-bezos-fake-news-in-the-newspaper-he-really-owns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/06\/04\/jeff-bezos-fake-news-in-the-newspaper-he-really-owns\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos\u2019 Fake News in the Newspaper He Really Owns"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Media criticism sometimes involves reading between the lines, assessing the layered meanings of journalistic rhetoric, or considering what’s left unsaid<\/i> in a given conversation. But we shouldn’t be numb to all the times media problems hit you like a sock in the jaw.<\/p>\n

\"Jacobin:

Andrew Perez and David Sirota (Jacobin<\/strong>, 5\/27\/21<\/a>): “Hours after the Washington Post<\/strong>\u00a0reported<\/a> that the DC attorney general is bringing an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, the front page of the Post<\/strong>\u2019s website was festooned with native ads from Amazon portraying itself as a devoted supporter of a higher federal minimum wage.”<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

That was the case when readers opened the Washington Post<\/b> online recently to find a full page “native” ad\u2014that’s the kind designed to look like news<\/a>\u2014from Amazon <\/b>(Jacobin<\/b>, 5\/27\/21<\/a>). Whose owner Jeff Bezos owns the Post<\/b> and soon MGM <\/b>(Washington Post<\/b>, 5\/26\/21<\/a>), among much else.<\/p>\n

Blended in with the Post<\/b>‘s banner and “Democracy Dies in Darkness” tagline, readers got text about how Amazon<\/b> supports a raise in the federal minimum wage and has been paying its workers $15 an hour since 2018. A big picture showed an African-American employee and her child talking about how Amazon<\/b>‘s generosity is allowing them to move to a bigger home.<\/p>\n

Never mind that, as many could tell you, the company was dragged kicking and screaming to that wage increase (Jacobin<\/b>, 10\/2\/18<\/a>); that they continue to fund groups that strenuously oppose a $15 minimum wage (Jacobin<\/b>, 5\/27\/21<\/a>), like the US Chamber of Commerce; that they have vigorously and vehemently opposed union organizing (New York Times<\/b>, 3\/16\/21<\/a>)\u2014and that no wage can justify the dangerous and degrading conditions Amazon<\/b> is reported to subject many of its workers to (Intercept<\/b>, 3\/25\/21<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Just as it was selling Post<\/b> readers on the notion that it’s lifting folks to a better life, Amazon<\/b> was being cited by OSHA for a rate of serious workplace injuries nearly double that at other employers (CNBC<\/b>, 6\/1\/21<\/a>). A front-page, “truthy-looking” ad about corporate benevolence is surely designed to deflect from such troubling realities.<\/p>\n

It didn’t prevent the paper (6\/1\/21<\/a>) from reporting on the OSHA findings, though that story contained another kind of weirdness we’ve come to take for granted: a summary statement that “Amazon<\/b> declined to make any executives available for interviews on its workplace injury data.”<\/p>\n

\n

Featured image: Ad lobbying for Amazon<\/strong> on the homepage of the Washington Post<\/strong> (via Jacobin<\/strong>, 5\/27\/21<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Jeff Bezos’ Fake News in the Newspaper He Really Owns<\/a> appeared first on FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on FAIR<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A front-page, “truthy-looking” Washington Post ad about Amazon’s corporate benevolence is designed to deflect from troubling realities.<\/p>\n

The post Jeff Bezos\u2019 Fake News in the Newspaper He Really Owns<\/a> appeared first on FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1415,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28144,3673,1303,28145,259,4070,262,263],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1415"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191982"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192027,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191982\/revisions\/192027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}