DC panics because Politico may drop its bias

Last summer, the German publishing company Axel Springer purchased Politico. The media guesstimated the price was $1 billion. Who knows? Who cares what the price was?

At the time, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, said, "Politico's outstanding team has disrupted digital political journalism and set new standards. A true North Star. It will be a privilege and a special responsibility to help shape the future of this outstanding media company. Objective quality journalism is more important than ever, and we mutually believe in the necessity of editorial independence and nonpartisan reporting. This is crucial for our future success and accelerated growth."

I do not disagree. Politico has skyrocketed in influence in DC and it may even make money. Again, the latter part does not matter to me because I have my own wallet to worry about.

But the Washington Post does worry because the only reason Daddy Warbucks, er, Jeff Bezos bought it was for its influence. And Politico is cutting into that.

Today WaPo ran a profile (hit piece) on Döpfner. It was titled, "Politico's new German owner has a ‘contrarian’ plan for American media."

The goal here is to isolate Politico and get politicians and their spokesmen to stop talking to Politico. That is a pretty savvy plan.

The charges against Döpfner are 1. he plans to make the site nonpartisan, and 2. he asked his employees in Germany to pray for Donald Trump on Election Day 2020.

This is blasphemy and apostasy in the seat of the most expensive government in the history of the world.

WaPo published an email he sent executives in Germany on November 3, 2020. It said, "Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?

"No American administration in the last 50 years has done more."

Fact check: True.

I do not know which bothered WaPo most: that he supported Trump or that Döpfner prayed.

That he has an opinion that self-described journalists disagree with is a hoot. So what? WaPo publishes about a half-dozen opinions daily. All of them are lefty. Calling them communist is impolite but that is what they are.

This lack of self-awareness is a hallmark of modern journalism. In January, Foreign Policy published an opinion piece, "The Scandalous History of America’s Newest Media Baron."

The scandal?

The column said, "Axel Springer himself, the empire’s founding father, did not hide that he used Bild and the daily broadsheet Die Welt to intervene in German and European politics—often on issues that directly benefited the fortunes of the media house. Born in 1912 to a well-known publisher, Springer started Bild Zeitung in 1952, in imitation of the United Kingdom’s tabloid press. The daily was immediately recognizable, as it is today, with its giant full-page headlines and mix of provocative right-wing editorializing, soft porn, and sensationalist lowbrow stories. Circulation skyrocketed—aided by the helping hand of the CIA and British occupation military. The Axel Springer publishing house branched out from there. By the 1960s, it owned dozens of regional dailies, glossy weeklies, and other major national publications such as Die Welt, and it has dominated the German media landscape ever since."

A magazine on its opinion page scolded a newspaper for publishing its opinions!

The panic is a sight to behold. Joe Concha of Fox tweeted, "Hilarious reading all of these media members down here freaking out over Politico’s new owner… all without possessing a hint of self-reflection on who they openly root for in terms of political parties in their so-called coverage on a daily basis."

Well, it is too early in the day to be eating popcorn, but I am as I go through my Twitter feed.