I walked to Washington mail Building for the first time in the summer of 1981. After the red Linotype machine that was distinguished by the entrance Pillars The headquarters of the fifteenth street for many years and even the newsroom on the fifth floor, which is a cavernous space that appears as shown in “All the President of the President”.
I was new outside the college and on my way to the Faculty of Law. Along the way, I worked in a small legal newspaper, where I found myself interested in the matter and was annoyed by lawyers about my lack. Bob Woodwardthe Pillars The metro editor has read some pieces and called me to speak. In fact, try to talk to me outside the law school. He told me that Harvard refused to work for GuardianPaper in Montgomery Province, Mariland. Why not only come to mail?
I reached, and I asked Woodward about his age at the time. Twenty -seven, he said. I said, great, I will be twenty -six years old when I graduate from the Faculty of Law. I will return. I was first as a summer trainee, in 1982, and then as a full -time reporter, starting from September 4, 1984, covering Prince George’s province, on the outskirts of Maryland. She stayed for forty years, six months and six days.
I stayed until I could no longer – even the owner of the newspaper, Jeff BezosHe issued a decree that Pillars Opinion offers will focus from now on the dual columns of “personal freedoms and free markets”, and even more worrying, that “the views that oppose these columns will be left to spread by others.” I stayed even Pillars The publisher, Will Lewis, killed a column last week, expressing his dispute with this new trend. Louis refused my request to meet. (You can read the column completely below, but – the Saudi alert – if you yearn for red meat, it is preparing for Tofu. I have written this piece in the hope of publishing and recording it, not embarrassment or provoking the paper management.)
Is it possible to love an institution what is the way you love someone, and without reservation? For me, for many other reporters and editors, this is the way we felt about mail. There was for us, and we are. Saturday night, in May 1992, the investigation correspondent George Lardner, SonHe was in the news room when he received a call that his 20 -year -old daughter, Christine, was killed in Boston by her former abusive boyfriend. As I remember, there were no other trips that night to Boston. the Pillars The CEO, Don Graham, hired a plane to get Lardner as he needed to go. It was a typical for Graham, a kindness that generates the loyalty and emotion of the excessive employees.
Graham’s own verb mail His painful decision to sell the paper was in 2013 to Bezos, which made his wide wealth as the founder of the Amazon. The Graham family was barely poor, but in the new media environment – and in light of the uncompromising demands in reporting the quarterly profits – it was forced, over and over again, to make edges, at a time when investment was needed. Instead of continuing to cut, inevitably, it reduces the paper that I love, Graham conducted an accurate search for a new owner with resources, judgment and vision to help mail Mobility in this new era. Bezos –Final turmoil,” like luck He had called him a year ago – saw the right choice.
As deputy editor -in -chief, Farid Hayat, I had the opportunity to see a new royal drama that is closely playing. In the summer and autumn 2016, as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Filled for the presidency, our editorial board, from which I was a member of it, was not important in his criticism of Trump. As the Republican Party conference was eaten, in late July, very long editorials published, even before the Democrats held their conference, that the paper could not support Trump.
“The real estate pole is uniquely qualified to work as a president, in experience and mood,” Hayat books. “It is an escalating campaign of crowds and mockery, not the essence. To the extent that he has views, they are wrong to diagnose America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s policy of distortion and division can lead to the abolition of bonds that brought together a diverse nation together. It may reveal the constitutional standards for the country’s experience that dates back to two tablets in checks and balances to be more fragile than we were We know. This was not the end of what we had to say. In September 2016, we published a series of six editing articles that define “the clear and present danger to Donald Trump”, from climate change to the global economy to immigration.
We had every indication that Bezos shared this feeling of warning. Bezos and HITT have made phone calls twice a month, which I joined, along with Pillars Then the publisher, Farid Ryan, and the other deputy Hatitt, Jackson Dihal. These conversations, in which the owner presented the instructions; They were like sessions that were absent in the bedroom, with a heavy dose of politics. We have presented a player in Washington, gossip, and we visited our vision, as it was, about politics and international affairs. Bezos talked about the need to find innovative ways to communicate with readers – mention something about Watermelon explosion Who went virus BuzzfeedAlthough I did not follow exactly how this applies to our work. When I told the worker of the humorous column Alexandra Petri Samuel Picky inWaiting for the axis: a tragic a gop“Vladimir Ryan and Estragon Bigrus awaits Trump’s transformation into the center, Bezos suggested that we publish a dramatic video. (Proof that the tremendous wealth and only ownership do not always get what you want, our video section.)
In my experience at the time, Bezos came out as a witch, smart and broad. “Oh comrades, this is always the most interesting meeting in my weekly,” he says, it seems that it means. Or, “I know we have continued for a while, but can I bring you another question?” – As if he was not the owner, and we were not in Beck and invited him.
Trump’s first elections brought and clarified some of the drones. About 36 million voters supported Trump, but even our conservative writers-including George Will, Charles Creshammar, and Michael Gerson-Michasson-they criticized Trump. Bezos pressed us to find more book from Heartland, who may understand Trump’s attractiveness. This was completely appropriate. The most worrying thing was his packed desire, at the beginning of the new administration, to find the editorial page, anythingPositive to say about Trump. During Trump’s first period, Pillars He was the executive editor Martin Baron. The Baron also calls in his book, “Power collision“Bezos” urged Trump’s support on any issues he could. . . . whenever mail The editorial council’s view with Trump coincided with, why don’t you say that? “Baron wrote,” for fear that Bezos was keen to calm things up with the new White House worker. “During a phone call before the conversion, Bezos seized a line from the first Trump After the election press conference– “I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that” – as a promising sign. This was a very charitable interpretation, given that, at the same event, Trump refused to ask a question from “Fake News” CNN, and BBC called “another beauty”, and he condemned Buzzfeed As a “failed pile of garbage”, we suggested a lot to Bezos.
However, we tried to give Trump, wherever possible, the benefit of doubt. An example of this is an editorial published on January 18, 2017, “Five policies may be Trump’s right.” I noticed that although the newspaper supported his opponent, “the election of Trump was legitimate, and his clarification is inevitable. We all have the duty to oppose Mr. Trump when he is wrong, but also that we remain open to his support when he and the requesting Republican Congress submitted worthy proposals.”
Four years later, Editorial Board Joe Biden supported For the president, a warning that “democracy is in danger, at home and around the world. The nation strongly needs a president who respects its general employees; defending the rule of law; recognition of the constitutional role of Congress; and working for the public good, not his own interest.” There was no dispute from the owner.
Many changed-and before Bizos’s decision at eleven o’clock in the eleventh o’clock killing The newspaper’s support for Kamala Harris In 2024, Hayat died suddenly in December 2021. David Shipply was replaced (full detection: I applied for a job and did not get it), who, as an executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion coverage, had experience in dealing with views, billionaire owner. To read the opening articles in the paper 2024 on Trump and Piden, then on Trump and Harris, it is an emotional voice hesitant and educated. (I left the editorial board in September 2023.) The Democrats presented the voters two away from the ideal candidates, but, to reformulate Biden, we do not compare them with the Almighty here.
Certainly, Trump was not drifted from criticism. In fact, there was no doubt about the candidate preferred by the Editorial Council. However, the shift was in an unambiguous tone. I will not know from the 2024 editorials that only four years ago, we called Trump “the worst president of the modern era” – and that was before January 6 rebellion In Capitol. In September, 2024, the opening opening of Trump and Harris on the basis of politics concluded that “the objective contradictions that Ms. Harris draws with Mr. Trump makes her look better. But should the Americans settled?” In general? Look at what Trump has been doing since he took office-in the core unconstitutional, small, and cruelty Executive orders– He told me that Harris was “generally” better.
It has become clear, as September, to October, has become something with support. Those who do not know – and who included almost all of us in the opinions section, because the piece was unusually held – that the delay involves negotiating the tone and attributes. Then, on October 25, our first wounds came to us: The leadership of the paper announced that it is in fact, We will not make support In the presidential race 2024, he will not be in future competitions.
