In a surprising reverse suck up, The Washington Post is now doing an about face on Amazon’s “Alpha House.”
On Sunday night, hope arrived as the Post‘s Hank Stuever added his two cents in a new review of “Alpha House,” virtually trashing it. Granted, the headline on his story included “Trudeau” (as in Garry) and not “Amazon,” but still:
“Strangely, the one element ‘Alpha House’ is missing is hilarity. As in LOL, as in the kind of laughter you can hear coming from the person in the other room who is watching the show on his iPa — excuse me, his Kindle Fire. (Obligatorily, I must note here that The Washington Post is now owned by the guy who founded Amazon. But you know that.) The show is so tight — maybe too tight — that it starts to choke on its own power-tie premise in the first three episodes.”
This, on the heels of an elaborate and flattering story published Friday by Michael Cavna, who had his story in the works for seven months before Amazon founder Jeff Bezos even purchased the Post. (On Friday, The Mirror accused the post of ass kissing on the job.) The on-set story certainly wasn’t outside of the Post‘s wheelhouse as it is a new Washington-centric show about lawmakers shacking up in a Capitol Hill townhouse. Cavna, an editorial cartoonist, included three unique sketches from the set in the photo gallery.
Still, on Saturday, readers seethed as the Post ran Cavna’s story at the top of the homepage with the word “Amazon” in the headline. What drew their ire? In part, the headline: “A canary in a gold mine for Amazon?” The comment section was a mess of complaints: 1. “I’m sure it’s a coincidence this story is lead just weeks after Bezos bought the paper. I’m equally sure we’ll see similar stories about Netflix programming get equal billing.” 2. “A front-page, above-the-fold Washington Post story promoting an Amazon venture. Jeff Bezos’ investment is already paying off, big-time.” 3. “A one-page article I could understand; after all, it’s a major company debuting a new TV show, it makes sense. But four pages about an extremely mediocre (I had high hopes for John Goodman too but the writing is awful) show?! The Post’s readers deserve an apology. If this is the future of the Post then I’m just going to have to quit altogether.” 4. “The WP has gone to the toilet.” 5. “Is the WaPo/BezPo now just an infomercial for Amazon?”
An important journalism ethics question: Should a reporter stop covering a story because the outlet’s ownership has suddenly changed hands? It’s a question that has been raised before (think News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and the WSJ) and one that will surface again.
Perhaps Bezos really meant what he said last month at a staff-wide meeting when he told newsroom employees that they should cover Amazon as they see fit. He said reporters should “feel free to cover Amazon any way you want, feel free to cover Jeff Bezos any way you want.”
Something to note: In May, the Post gave essentially the same treatment to HBO’s “Veep,” complete with a visit to the set.
We’ll see if Stuever makes it through the week, right?