Jeff Bezos is not relentlessly targeted on buyer satisfaction

The fallout from the non-endorsement of Kamala Harris at The Washington Put up is right here: greater than 200,000 canceled subscriptions, NPR reviews. That is about 8 p.c of the paid subscriber base, and the variety of cancellations remains to be rising.

To place that in perspective, in an Oct. fifteenth story about Put up CEO Will Lewis’s technique to get extra paying subscribers, The New York Instances reported that the Put up had added 4,000 subscribers for the reason that starting of 2024 by means of September. Like, I’m really flabbergasted: that’s fifty occasions as many cancellations in a single weekend as The Put up earned within the higher a part of a yr.

Now, there have been a number of reviews at this level — from NPR, The Columbia Journalism Assessment, and The Washington Put up itself — that the decision to cease endorsing candidates got here from Jeff Bezos himself. The identical day as Lewis’s weird announcement of The Put up’s non-endorsement, executives from Bezos’s area firm, Blue Origin, met with presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Lewis would love us to depart poor Bezos alone. Bezos “was not despatched, didn’t learn and didn’t opine on any draft,” the CEO informed CNN within the form of assertion that we within the enterprise know as a non-denial denial. That’s — it’s a fastidiously worded recitation of issues Bezos did not do. It doesn’t deny that Bezos made the decision for no endorsement. And at present, The New York Instances’Ben Mullin reported that Bezos had expressed reservations a couple of presidential endorsement as early as September.

The blowback has been so intense that Bezos has taken it upon himself to elucidate the choice in The Washington Put up. “I’d additionally wish to be clear that no quid professional quo of any type is at work right here,” he wrote. As a substitute, he claimed that it was “a principled choice.” That it was introduced so near the election was just a bit whoopsy-doodle that Bezos claims was “insufficient planning.”

To again the choice, Bezos writes in regards to the nosedive belief in media has taken. It’s true that fewer individuals belief the media than earlier than, however that will even be as a result of individuals don’t essentially know as many reporters anymore. Within the days of wholesome native journalism, reporters have been your pals and neighbors, regular individuals that you simply interacted with frequently on the grocery retailer. That’s not the case; journalists are skinny on the bottom, and wildly outnumbered by PR individuals. Fox Information, specifically, has gone out of its strategy to sow mistrust. Dumping on different publications is a main technique for drumming up Substack subscriptions — simply ask Bari Weiss.

However I don’t count on the founding father of Amazon to know this historical past any greater than I count on him to know learn how to function The Put up’s CMS. And in addition to, the belief in media factor is a distraction. The op-ed is a transparent try at harm management — an try and cease the bleeding. It’s too little, and too late.

I suppose I ought to point out the varied authorities contracts Bezos’s different companies have — amongst them, Amazon’s $10 billion NSA contract and Blue Origin’s $3.4 billion NASA contract. Trump has beforehand focused Bezos for The Washington Put up’s reporting. A columnist who stop the Put up over the choice, Robert Kagan, informed CNN, “That is clearly an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump within the anticipation of his attainable victory.” Kagan pointed to the enterprise contracts as motivation.

Bezos would additionally like us to depart poor Bezos alone. “I’d additionally wish to be clear that no quid professional quo of any type is at work right here,” he wrote. “Dave Limp, the chief govt of one among my firms, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed after I discovered, as a result of I knew it might present ammunition to those that want to body this as something apart from a principled choice. However the reality is, I didn’t know in regards to the assembly beforehand.”

Bezos made his bones at Amazon by relentlessly specializing in buyer satisfaction. Time and again, he informed individuals to concentrate on making clients blissful. Right here’s a enjoyable quote from his 2016 letter to shareholders:

There are various methods to heart a enterprise. You could be competitor targeted, you could be product targeted, you could be know-how targeted, you could be enterprise mannequin targeted, and there are extra. However in my opinion, obsessive buyer focus is by far essentially the most protecting of day one vitality.

That’s in all probability good recommendation for working a enterprise, and it seems to be recommendation neither Lewis nor Bezos himself took. By spiking a presidential endorsement, Bezos has created the looks of a battle of curiosity — and in journalism, that’s as unhealthy as an precise battle of curiosity as a result of now you’ve misplaced the belief of your viewers.

(Lewis, although, isn’t any stranger to journalism, since he does have expertise as an editor. Nonetheless, a few of that have is being investigated within the Sunday Instances cellphone hacking scandal, so possibly he’s not the perfect particular person to seek the advice of on these issues.)

Nonetheless, if there may be one factor Bezos is thought for, it’s his cutthroat strategy to capitalism. And right here, he has failed at that, too. The shoppers have been talking very clearly: NPR reviews that three of the highest 10 tales on the Put up’s website Sunday have been from staffers pissed off in regards to the killed endorsement. Essentially the most-read was by the paper’s beloved humorist Alexandra Petri: “It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president.” Once I checked The Put up’s website once more at present, the highest two tales have been in regards to the controversy.

“Now greater than ever the world wants a reputable, trusted, unbiased voice,” Bezos writes. That is true. It’s additionally why he shouldn’t have employed Will Lewis within the first place. A man concerned in a cellphone hacking scandal is just not credible. Between Lewis and the pulled endorsement, it’s clear Bezos doesn’t perceive his clients. I’m wondering if he even understands credibility.

The blowback is greater than The Put up. One factor our tech overlords have been very sad about these days has been the federal government’s renewed strategy to antitrust below Joe Biden. What the Put up scandal highlights — in addition to Will Lewis’s incompetence — is strictly what number of companies Bezos owns, and the way conflicts of curiosity may come up. He has skillfully drawn consideration from regular residents to overreaches of energy in enterprise. There’s, in fact, an answer: breaking apart companies which have gotten too huge.

Properly, I suppose that’s a lesson for us all. That is what occurs once you concentrate on your self and never on the purchasers. Not solely do they depart you in droves, however they might really revile you adequate to be politically harmful.

Replace, October twenty eighth: Provides Jeff Bezos’s Washington Put up op-ed explaining why he selected to shoot his personal newspaper within the foot.