Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez during the 60^th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.Credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP

This isn’t an innocent decision by a newspaper owner with an ideological agenda. It’s inseparable from the mood in the American business world ever since Donald Trump was elected president. On one hand, there is blatant fawning over Trump, which was already evident at his inauguration. And on the other, there’s increasing involvement by a group of billionaires, mainly from the tech world, in the administration’s work.

This development is reflected above all in the political meddling of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, whom Trump has put in charge of streamlining U.S. government agencies. Musk is approaching this task with a brutality that has undermined vital institutions. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly fell in line with the winds blowing from the White House when he abolished Facebook’s fact-checking mechanism.

The media have a right to promote certain values and worldviews. But Bezos’ decision to reduce journalistic freedom of expression in one of the most important newspapers in the world cannot be seen in isolation from the deeper processes that are threatening the free press in many countries where anti-liberal leaders have taken power. The harm done to freedom of the press in these countries is a declared and deliberate part of these leaders’ war on democratic principles. The combination of a vengeful, unpredictable president and the government of oligarchs that is emerging in the United States is leading it into a very dangerous era of undermining the checks and balances of the world’s most powerful democracy – and, in its wake, those of other countries as well.

In Israel, too, the press is facing growing threats by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to curb its independence. These have included secret meddling via the owners of media outlets, as documented in the criminal cases against Netanyahu; attempted takeovers from within, as happened at Channel 13 television; and explicit legislation, like the bills the government has been submitting day and night against the Kan public broadcasting corporation and Haaretz.

In this climate, it’s important to remember that the press, even when it’s privately owned, has a unique role in a democratic society. Newspaper owners are tasked with a complex moral mission that sometimes poses a very difficult personal burden – balancing their personal interests with the public’s interests. In a world in which the number of publishers who understand this deep responsibility is shrinking, the free press is also shrinking, and with it, the future of the democratic system, whose survival isn’t self-evident. Jeff Bezos is just another example of the dangerous slipperiness of this slope.

Haaretz

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