December 9, 2023		INDEX
How to fool the press: Be big, bad and ugly!
If you have ever seen a photo of Jeff Bezos, the boss of Amazon, you will probably have observed that he looks rather like a cartoon or pantomime baddie. Since he controls his image, he probably won't mind at all that he is being villainised as the man who is stealing Christmas, on BBC radio and in the newspapers today. He's used to it. The latest story is that the Post Office is prioritising Amazon packages over Christmas cards and cancer appointments, because more money can be made from Amazon. See Daily Mail story. I find this very hard to believe partly because for a number of years I worked the Christmas period in a Post Office sorting centre. And the Christmas rush seemed to be a thing of the past, since the employment rarely lasted more than a few days and we did not seem to be over stretched. But the main point is that Bezos did not get to be one of the richest bandits in the world by negotiating soft contracts that gave contractors high prices. So what's going on here? Is this just another cheap publicity stunt? Clearly he's getting millions of pounds worth of free publicity and if this jogs people's memories so that they go to Amazon and buy a few late Christmas presents, confident that they will get to the recipient on time because Amazon is getting postal priority, it works. But why does the media let Amazon do this to them? Well there's an old Humbert Wolfe poem that goes: You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to. I suggest that media types should add the 1971 Who classic "Won't Get Fooled Again" to their play list.
INDEX Jonathan Brind	December 9, 2023