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November 2nd, 2024 (Permalink)
Can Jeff Bezos Save The Washington Post?
& Shaken Baby Syndrome on Trial
In case you don't know, Jeff Bezos, the man who made his billions from Amazon, bought the financially ailing Washington Post over a decade ago1. The Post is still ailing financially, having lost $77 million last year2, which isn't pocket change even for Bezos. In addition, the newspaper has lost half its audience in the last four years. Recently, Bezos announced that the paper would not endorse a candidate for president this election, which produced much wailing, rending of garments, and cancelling of subscriptions3. Subsequently, Bezos published the following editorial to defend his decision.
- Jeff Bezos, "The hard truth: Americans don't trust the news media", The Washington Post, 10/28/2024
In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year's Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working. …
We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement.
This is because you're failing on the first. If you see this only as a public relations problem, you'll continue to fail on both.
Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn't see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, "I'm going with Newspaper A's endorsement." None.
I don't see how Bezos can possibly know this. I certainly would be skeptical that a newspaper endorsement, even that of The Washington Post, would sway many voters, but none at all? Given that Bezos can't possibly know this, why does he insist on it? Many of those upset by Bezos' decision not to endorse Kamala Harris―the chance that The Post would endorse Trump is as close to zero as you wish―are unhappy that the newspaper isn't doing all that it can to elect her, despite the fact its news pages are completely behind her. So, Bezos is trying to convince these people that the non-endorsement won't hurt Harris, and I expect it won't make any difference to the outcome of the election even if a few voters might have been swayed by an endorsement.
What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it's a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy. …
What really creates the perception of bias is the fact of it in The Post's reporting and not an endorsement that occurs once every four years. Not only will dropping the endorsement not move The Post "very far up the trust scale", it shouldn't. To really bring back trust will require much larger and more substantive changes to the newspaper. A first step in that direction will be not to rehire any employees who quit over the non-endorsement. Similarly for any lost subscribers: Bezos needs to win back the subscribers The Post lost long ago rather than those lost in the last week or so. Bezos has the money, if he's willing to put it where his mouth is, to weather the current loss of subscribers and give the paper a chance to be reformed.
Lack of credibility isn't unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it's a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.
…I will…not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance―overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs―not without a fight. It's too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles. Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of anything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it. I am so grateful to be part of this endeavor. Many of the finest journalists you'll find anywhere work at The Washington Post, and they work painstakingly every day to get to the truth. They deserve to be believed.
Nobody deserves to be believed unless they earn it. Currently, the paper endorses Harris on every one of its news pages, and it will take much more than not endorsing her on the editorial page to change the entirely correct perception of bias. I wish Mr. Bezos good luck in attempting to reform The Post―he's going to need it as it will be a very big job.
- Jeff Kukucka & David Faigman, "Shaken Baby Syndrome Has Been Discredited. Why Is Robert Roberson Still on Death Row?", Scientific American, 10/26/2024
In a last-minute effort to save the life of a man on death row, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators has just done something extraordinary: they have unanimously subpoenaed Robert Roberson, convicted in 2003 of killing his daughter based on the now-discredited theory of shaken baby syndrome, to testify before them five days after he was scheduled to be executed, effectively forcing the state to keep him alive.
Roberson is one of many people who have been imprisoned for injuries to a child that prosecutors argue resulted from violent shaking. But research has exposed serious flaws in these determinations, and dozens of other defendants who have been wrongly convicted under this theory have been exonerated. Yet Roberson remains on death row, even as politicians, scientists and others…have spoken out on his behalf. If his execution proceeds, they and many others believe that Texas will be killing an innocent man for a "crime" that never happened.
As our scientific understanding of shaken baby syndrome has evolved over the past 20 years, justice requires that courts reexamine old convictions in light of new findings. This is especially true for Roberson, who would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed for a conviction based on shaken baby syndrome. No matter one's view of the death penalty, the ultimate punishment must be held to the ultimate standard of proof―and Roberson's case falls woefully short of that standard.
The theory behind shaken baby syndrome dates back to the early 1970s, when two medical researchers―Norman Guthkelch and John Caffey―separately published the first scientific papers explaining that shaking an infant can cause fatal internal injuries even absent external injuries. Over time physicians and law enforcement officers, among others, widely began to rely on a triad of symptoms―brain bleeding, brain swelling and retinal bleeding―as definitive proof that someone had abused a child by shaking. To support this theory, researchers cited cases in which a child displayed these symptoms and a caretaker confessed to shaking the child, which ostensibly confirmed the triad as a reliable way to diagnose abuse.
There is no doubt that shaking a child can cause injuries, including those that comprise the shaken baby syndrome triad. Newer research, however, has shown that shaking is not the only way to cause those injuries: They can also result from an accidental "short fall" (e.g., falling off a bed) as well as from other medical causes (e.g., pneumonia, improper medication)―all of which were true of Roberson's daughter. In fact, a 2024 study found that the injuries historically used to diagnose shaking are actually more likely to result from accidents than from shaking. In short, modern science understands that the presence of these symptoms does not necessarily mean that a child was abused, nor does their absence mean that they were not abused.
Why did clinicians wrongly trust this triad of symptoms for so long? The short answer is that correcting misconceptions requires a feedback loop that is often lacking in child abuse investigations. When a doctor diagnoses a living adult and prescribes a treatment, the effectiveness of that treatment provides feedback on the correctness of their diagnosis; if the treatment proves ineffective, doctors can learn from this misdiagnosis and adjust future diagnoses accordingly. Such feedback, however, is not always sufficient; for instance, doctors practiced bloodletting for centuries because it was generally accepted and seemed to work for some patients, though it was an illusory correlation. With respect to shaking, doctors rarely learn whether a child was actually shaken because the child is typically deceased or unable to articulate what happened, and thus doctors rarely receive feedback that the triad led to an incorrect diagnosis. …
Science is constantly evolving, and when it reveals a past mistake, we do not simply resign ourselves to it; we take corrective action. Our legal system should be no different. When Robert Roberson was convicted, the injury triad was widely accepted as proof of shaking―but as science has progressed, that is no longer the case. The law's guarantee of due process must account for such progress, especially when a person's life literally depends on it. …
The evidence for Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) was always shaky4, if you'll forgive the pun, and the evidence against individuals, such as Roberson5, is often based entirely upon that shaky evidence. There usually is no direct evidence―such as a confession, photos or video, or an eyewitness―that the baby was shaken. So, the only evidence of a crime is medical evidence. If the symptoms supposedly proving SBS may, in fact, be caused by other things than shaking―such as short falls or certain diseases―then death may be the result of an accident or illness rather than homicide. Do we want to execute people when there's reasonable doubt as to whether a crime even occurred, let alone that the accused is guilty of it?
Notes:
- Benjamin Mullin & Katie Robertson, "A Decade Ago, Jeff Bezos Bought a Newspaper. Now He's Paying Attention to It Again.", The New York Times, 7/22/2023.
- Oliver Darcy, "The Washington Post publisher disclosed the paper lost $77 million last year. Here's his plan to turn it around", CNN, 5/23/2023.
- Erik Wemple, "What happened to all those subscriptions?", The Washington Post, 11/1/2024.
- Deborah Tuerkheimer, "Shaken baby syndrome is not definitive proof of child abuse", New Scientist, 9/19/2017.
- For details of the case against Roberson, see: Kayla Guo, "There are warring depictions of Robert Roberson's murder case. Here's what to know.", Texas Tribune, 10/29/2024.
Disclaimer: I don't necessarily agree with everything in these articles, but I think they're worth reading as a whole.