Owner rebukes Trump
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the WashingtonPost newspaper, warned on Thursday (Friday in Manila) that President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media are dangerous for the country.
During a question-answer session at a dinner hosted by the Economic Club of Washington (ECW), Bezos said Trump’s attacks risk eroding protections and social norms important for democracy.
“It’s dangerous to demonize the media,” Bezos said. “It’s dangerous to call the media lowlifes. It’s dangerous to say they are the enemy of the people.”
He added that “we live in a society where it’s not just the laws of the land that protect us... it’s also the social norms that protect us. It works because we believe the words on that piece of paper.” Bezos said Trump and other
- lic and media scrutiny, which he called “healthy.”
The comments appeared to
of Trump by Bezos, a frequent target of attacks by the president.
“I do defend the Post,” he said. “I don’t feel the need to defend Amazon.”
But he paraphrased Washington Post editor Martin Baron as saying that “the adminstration may be at war with us, but we are not at war with the administration.”
Despite his concerns with Trump, Bezos said that he was not overly concerned about the future of the news media.
“We are so robust in this coun-