Endorsement

Tonight a billionaire tried to explain to the journalists at the newspaper he bought why he hadn't interfered in its operations, even though it's plain to see that he has, by spiking their presidential endorsement. He's a familiar type of technology billionaire: convinced journalism is easy and abundant, but that also he is so multi-talented. he can do journalists' jobs better than they can; holds journalism in contempt but wants to own a newsroom. He has used his newspaper to lie to the journalists who work there; when he did, he referred to himself and the people who make the paper as "we."

There are only so many billionaires, but too many. I first wrote about this one for a blog in 2008. (I can't remember anything specific that I or anyone else at that website wrote about this billionaire, but clearly we could have done more. I would go look it up in the site's archives, but due to another billionaire, those are gone.) Whatever it was I wrote, it would have to have been during the first Obama campaign, an awkward time to be working for anyone but yourself, my first campaign in a newsroom. By October, it was already boring, to us, that anyone thought it was interesting that blogs were covering a presidential campaign. By November, half of us were out of work. In retrospect, we didn't make enough billionaires scared of blogs.

As far as this desk is concerned, I would like to finish the Scottsboro section of my book. Instead at work today I wrote about a fascist rally. No, I didn't know in 2008 when that billionaire was smaller that this is what covering a presidential campaign might look like. Whatever happens, I will still be writing about 1933 for a little while longer.