The WaPo #WhyISubscribe campaign is both tone-deaf and ineffective

As of last week, a quarter of a million Washington Post readers have canceled their subscriptions over what many see as an overreach on the part of billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who decided that the paper would not endorse a presidential candidate in this year’s election. 

Some readers and reporters from the Post and The New York Times have posted their reasons for sticking with the paper under the hashtag campaign #WhyISubscribe. The reasons are plentiful, beginning with the Post’s own journalism. This year, for example, the paper, whose editorial slogan has been “Democracy Dies in Darkness” won a Pulitzer Prize for a series on the AR-15. 

I agree with a campaign that explains why this kind of journalism is essential and should be supported. I disagree that the upset over the Bezos endorsement ban is on audiences to fix, that readers are misguided or worse in canceling, and the implication that only commercial for-profit newsrooms deserve to be rescued. 

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Here’s the written version

https://kappanonline.org/tanzina-vega-whyisubscribe-doesnt-help-russo/