STEVE KRAKAUER: Washington Post endorsement debacle exposes our ‘zombie elites.’

The Washington Post is a “Zombie Elite” — a formerly important institution that doesn’t know it is already dead. It is stiffly wandering around with a smug facade of elitism, not realizing the power and influence it formerly possessed have been deeply — and likely irreparably — eroded.

The Post is not alone in today’s culture. There are examples of Zombie Elites throughout the media landscape, as legacy mainstays like CBS News and ABC News have been drained of their elite status. Zombie Elites exist in government, the scientific community and the foreign policy world. During the Trump Era, but particularly in the past four years since the COVID pandemic and the rise of independent media overcoming the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” more Zombie Elites than ever are walking among us.

But at the same time, the Washington Post is a particularly notable kind of media Zombie Elite. What major story has the outlet broken in the past few years? The New York Times has essential new media properties, like “The Daily” podcast (and Wordle!). What inroads into the future has the Post made? When the rest of the establishment press temporarily rediscovered their interest in telling the truth about President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline between the debate disaster and his eventual withdrawal from the race, the Post barely contributed to the conversation.

And in a sign of failure even among insider-y journalistic elitism, it hasn’t even won a Pulitzer Prize in two years.

Bezos has a noble stated goal of no longer talking “to ourselves,” and both being, and appearing to be, less biased. But a skeptical audience’s trust can’t be reestablished through the billionaire boss torpedoing an endorsement at the last minute. It requires full-scale reinvention.

At the PJ Mothership, Mark Tapscott asks: Will Jeff Bezos Save the Washington Post the Way Elon Musk Rescued X?

Otherwise, how many more headaches like he’s had over the past couple of weeks does Bezos need from a publication that’s largely a money pit? Or as Ira Stoll asked in June: Who Will Be the Washington Post’s Next Owner?

(Via Ace of Spades.)