Pressure at POLITICO
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, technology entrepreneur and Axel Springer board member Martin Varsavsky came across a post in his X feed that set him off. The post, from POLITICO, linked to an article on its website about recent Israeli strikes on Gaza. The article itself was an Associated Press wire story, republished in full—a standard practice for news outlets. But whether Varsavsky didn’t realize that or simply didn’t care, he was livid. What followed was an impassioned tirade.
“I am on the board of Axel Springer that owns POLITICO,” Varsavsky wrote. “I consider this article one-sided Hamas support. It fails to mention that the airstrikes were aimed at eliminating top Hamas military and that Israel was successful at doing so. It also quotes casualty figures given by Hamas that are not believed to be accurate.”
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem