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A Matter of Life & Jeff

Yes, we’re all grossed out by billionaires and C.E.O.s genuflecting to the incoming president, even if much of it is cynical lip-service. But the agony and angst of it all has overly simplified a much more complex challenge.

jeff bezos
Lost in all the sturm und drang about the Post is the fact that, without Bezos, it would likely be out of business. Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for DJ
Dylan Byers
January 9, 2025

On Monday morning, Norm Pearlstine, an elder statesman of American journalism and veteran feudal lord of the L.A. Times, Time Inc., Bloomberg, and the pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal, sent an email to about 150 old friends and associates—A.G., Dean, Jill, Fareed, Marty, Maggie, Bewkes, Andreessen, Mike Moritz, the Grubmans, etcetera—with a copy of his new essay for Columbia Journalism Review. It was a cri de coeur for fearless journalism in the second Trump era, neatly timed to the anniversary of January 6, with the weighty title: Trump, the Public, and the Press.