Still standing for awhile

Still standing for awhile

       I am old enough these days (age 65 and grew up in D.C.) to remember when the Washington Post newspaper was considered a "rag" and a second class newspaper. The preeminent newspaper at the time of my growing up was the Evening Star, now decades long defunct.

            So times do change, though the human quest for "news" does not.

            So the recent acquisition of the Washington Post by Amazon.com entrepreneur Bezos gained my attention.

            Perhaps he can change and save this newspaper, which slowly but surely is going down the tubes in the present scheme of things, or so is my opinion.

            The quest for "news" is most human, and will not change, also in my opinion. This is not some parent type subject, but a more human type subject.

            So if Bezos can keep the "news" coming, that is the "news" we trust more than other "news", then good on him. I suspect that he even will clean up the act between news and opinion that has evolved, and make the "news" more all  American, and less the East Coast domination of the "news" that has evolved over the last decades. Heck, he might even try improve the means of delivery of the "news".

            I offer the present Washington Post as an example of what can stand some improvement, or death, like so many other newspapers. So good on Bezos for trying to change things for the better, I would say. And spending his own money, to boot. Obviously, many of the present elected USA politicians influenced by the Washington Post's present writers don't spend enough of their own money to keep it going as a successful private business enterprise. I would say only we Americans can these days, perhaps, I hope,  with some priming and leadership by Bezos.

            I can even remember when the USA national newspaper "USA Today" started back in the 1980's. So the idea is valid for news reporting, or so I and many others thought at the time. But the leaders of this commercial newspaper, often hired through the Gannet news chain of employers, simply have failed in their own quest. And now  this newspaper seems to be going under these days, too. Now that, if I am correct, is simple crummy and stupid leadership, to me. It did not have to happen, but it is happening these days. Of course, most of this sales info  is "classified" to we the readers, though not the businessman who run it, or so I suspect.