The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now

Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 32 Comments

Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss.

Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because collecting commissions on sales through Amazon Associates ads — hurry now and save! free shipping on purchases over $25! — is one of the best revenue opportunities for anyone with a Web site. Instapundit regularly advertises the latest Amazon deals and, while my own efforts in that direction are more sporadic, it’s enough Amazon sends me a check every month.

So yesterday the big news was that Bezos paid $250 million to buy the Washington Post, and on the same day my monthly Amazon check arrived and it occurred to me that this was a perfect example of how bloggers were ahead of the Old Media curve. When I jumped out of the newspaper business and into the blogosphere in 2008, the basic idea was to eliminate the middleman — instead of being a mere employee of a publisher, instead I’d be vending my work directly to the consumer as a journalistic entrepreneur.

Employees of the Washington Post are now my colleagues, and the colleagues of every other blogger who collects Amazon revenue. Thus the democratizing effects of New Media further erode the distance between the categories of “journalist” and “dude with a Web site.” Now you have a lot of journalists trying to explain it:

What is Jeff Bezos thinking?
— John Harris, Politico

Can Bezos Save the Washington Post
From Print’s Dismal Economics?
— Megan McArdle, Bloomberg

Here’s Why I Think Jeff Bezos
Bought The Washington Post
— Henry Blodget, Business Insider

 

Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged over the explanations offered by Dude With a Web Site.

The journalistic means of production (to borrow from Marxist rhetoric) are now within reach of anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection, and the institutional authority wielded by professional journalists is therefore steadily eroded, for good or ill.

Having spent the first 22 years of my career in the print newspaper industry, I have an abiding affection for the printed word, and a respect for the vital role that a good newspaper can play in the life of a community. But the clueless dinosaurs who own America’s newspapers, who have mismanaged those institutions and sabotaged both their credibility and their profitability . . .

Well, f–k ’em all, and also f–k their arrogant lazy employees who expect to be paid full-time salaries and benefits for punching the clock 9-to-5 and producing maybe 2,000 words a week.

Online competition for readers requires professional journalists to show some hustle out there, as our football coaches used to say. You’ve got to give it 110% every day or risk being beaten out by a more determined competitor. The advantages of employment by a prestigious institution like the Washington Post cannot save the career of any reporter who lets himself get scooped by Bretbart.com or BuzzFeed or even, as in one notable recent example, TheDirty.com.

A winnowing process has been under way for more than a decade. Headlines about wave after wave of layoffs at newspapers struck pain in my heart, as it must for everyone who learned their craft in the Old School, but there’s something I noticed: Almost none of these laid-off newspaper staffers ever show up as bloggers or as online freelancers.

Once they lost their jobs — the regular paycheck and the institutional authority of the organizations that formerly employed them — their commitment to journalism seems to have evaporated. They didn’t really have the hunger, the driving desire necessary to keep hustling every day once they lost that career prestige, and so the idea of striking out on their own never seems to have crossed their minds.

F–k ’em. F–k ’em all.

Shop now for big savings at Amazon! 

By God, I ain’t afraid to hustle for a dollar, and I ain’t ashamed, either.

 

Category: Amazon, Journalism

Comments

32 Responses to “We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now”

  1. MrEvilMatt
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:10 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now: Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss. Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because c… http://t.co/Gp06k6uHsJ

  2. CHideout
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:10 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now: Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss. Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because c… http://t.co/csXuYflDLu

  3. Citzcom
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:10 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now: Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss. Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because c… http://t.co/IAsG7FwonH

  4. jwbrown1969
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:10 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now: Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss. Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because c… http://t.co/shKhnTcR2d

  5. Lockestep1776
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:10 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now: Jeff Bezos: Meet the new boss. Every blogger loves Jeff Bezos, because c… http://t.co/ksalFcqlWI

  6. rsmccain
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:15 am

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp | @instapundit

  7. rsmccain
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:22 am

    “Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged …” http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp

  8. vermontaigne
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:23 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged …” http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp

  9. MisterBobCat
    August 6th, 2013 @ 11:26 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged …” http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp

  10. Dai Alanye
    August 6th, 2013 @ 12:09 pm

    Bezos is an empire builder willing to put the screws to anyone in the pursuit of a buck. Authors in particular should beware of him. Right now the Amazon connection pays off for you, but when the day comes that it’s in his interests to take advantage of you your tune will doubtless change.

  11. JeffS
    August 6th, 2013 @ 12:42 pm

    Does this mean you’ll get press credentials from Amazon?

    😀

  12. Chas C-Q
    August 6th, 2013 @ 12:43 pm

    Did you know that Obama had a chat with Bezos six days before he bought WaPo?

    If recent history is any guide, the leftists who own most of the ‘dinosaur media’ don’t really care if their propaganda conduits make money or not, so long as they can contribute to the din inside the echo chamber.

  13. Zilla of the Resistance
    August 6th, 2013 @ 12:48 pm

    Any word on whether or not some of those newly unemployed former journalists have taken up forkilft driving? Every day that you are not driving a forklift, Stacy, you have beaten the old media.

  14. Emilio_Crosby
    August 6th, 2013 @ 12:50 pm

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/VOsYO4kbvr

  15. OwainPenllyn
    August 6th, 2013 @ 1:16 pm

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/YddbCfOTui via @rsmccain #tcot #tgdn #teaparty #twisters #uniteblue

  16. rsmccain
    August 6th, 2013 @ 1:19 pm

    RT @OwainPenllyn: We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/YddbCfOTui via @rsmccain #tcot #tgdn #teaparty #twisters #uniteblue

  17. asherahresearch
    August 6th, 2013 @ 1:24 pm

    RT @rsmccain: We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp | @instapundit

  18. gardenofthegods
    August 6th, 2013 @ 1:55 pm

    RT @rsmccain: “Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged …” http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp

  19. JewishOdysseus
    August 6th, 2013 @ 2:02 pm

    “The clueless dinosaurs who own America’s newspapers…Well, f–k ‘em all, and also f–k their arrogant lazy employees.”http://t.co/yj7o5o7yyk

  20. PubliusNV
    August 6th, 2013 @ 2:07 pm

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/p2eA95dkdl

  21. K-Bob
    August 6th, 2013 @ 2:32 pm

    Well, six days probably was well after Bezos had his attorneys review the sales offer. But it is an interesting thing to note.

  22. K-Bob
    August 6th, 2013 @ 2:38 pm

    You just described a hard working entrepreneur.

    But Amazon really took off once Bezos opened it up to other marketers. That is not an example of someone out to screw everyone over, it’s someone mining an opportunity.

    Every new business opportunity comes with factors that damage existing businesses. Competition itself does that, too.

    I’m always amazed how you’ll see a Home Depot grand opening, and then three years later a brand new Lowes pops up directly across the street. Right in the face of Home Depot.

    Business is like swimming with sharks who have frikkin’ layzhur beams. First you have to kill one to get yourself one-o-them layzhur beams. Then you’re marked as a target. Better grow some teeth, fast.

  23. Wombat_socho
    August 6th, 2013 @ 3:00 pm

    I think most journalism majors don’t have the basic skills to cut it as forklift drivers.

  24. Bob Belvedere
    August 6th, 2013 @ 5:34 pm

    That’s the JeffS I know: always seeing the glass as half-full.

  25. Bob Belvedere
    August 6th, 2013 @ 5:37 pm

    You make a very important point: most Leftist media companies lose money. They stay afloat because there are successful businessmen out there who believe the only way for them to properly ‘give back to the community’ is to prop-up organizations dedicated to destroying our communities.

  26. Bob Belvedere
    August 6th, 2013 @ 5:38 pm

    Watch the rat bastards for a few seconds and you realize they’re all pussies.

  27. thatMrGguy
    August 6th, 2013 @ 7:01 pm

    We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now http://t.co/CJcIB2qXIB

  28. BobBelvedere
    August 6th, 2013 @ 7:27 pm

    RT @rsmccain: “Big hint: The explanations offered by journalists are no longer privileged …” http://t.co/T2fiwVklQp

  29. Dai Alanye
    August 6th, 2013 @ 8:59 pm

    There’s a significant difference between a tough competitor and a monopolist. With regard to ebooks, for instance, Amazon won’t make them available in EPUB, the most popular format, due to his attempt to make everyone publish in MOBI or the latest version thereof. In addition, they make it difficult for independent outfits such as Smashwords to offer books for the Kindle.

    Sounds more like a short-sighted monopolist than a hard working entrepreneur, but each of us may choose the definition we prefer.

  30. With No More Worlds to Conquer, Bezos Buys Birdcage Liner… | Regular Right Guy
    August 7th, 2013 @ 5:04 pm

    […] founder Jeff Bezos is taking […]

  31. LMS9
    August 8th, 2013 @ 3:20 am

    Fascinating game going on.. Some bizarre hybrid of ‘Don’t Break the Ice’ and ‘Calvinball.’ The question makes sense: “What motivates?”

    The part I don’t understand, though– how do you win? Last man standing?

  32. Steynian 485nst | Free Canuckistan!
    August 9th, 2013 @ 5:02 pm

    […] been busy carrying “phony scandals” water for the Obama administration; We’re All Working for Jeff Bezos Now; America Loves You, Sama Elmasry!; A genuinely disturbing story: “The Dubious Rape Trial at […]