There's got to be a natural law that, for any given situation, one can compose a scheme whereby no proof of anything would actually exist, but evil would still be done.
Easily attributable to business decisions / climate.
> the chief editor is very attuned so he assigns the right people to the right jobs before trouble starts
Staff assignment as a smoking gun? That's going to be a stretch.
> and the journalists so assigned naturally work quite sincerely
Indeed, just people doing their jobs.
Who, pray tell, is going to leak what?
In this frame, "business decisions / climate" are exactly the driving forces which perpetuate such structures and outcomes.
The banality of evil doesn't forgive laziness in the construction of hypotheses, unless you're Fox News.
To spell it out, what leak / disclosure would constitute proof of GP's belief? A memo from the WaPo editorial staff which says "Pursuant to Mr. Bezo's comments on X, please assign Y to story Z, so that reporting will be more favorable"?
And barring a plausible method of provability / falsifiability, we're in "just asking the question" rumor territory with regards to the original assertions of malice. Which, personally, seems below the level of discourse I expect from HN.
This is the extent of the "conspiracy" in Chomsky's opinion. When things like the Amazon firing of a union organizer happen, the reporter set to cover it is going to have more connections to the corporate side and a be accustomed to writing stories that will please corporate sponsors.
If a reporter is overly critical, the story will likely get a less favorable placement and that reporter won't get similar assignments in the future. There is no overt conspiracy, but there is editorial pressure.
The advertisers react to "wrong" coverage by withdrawing support, the chief editor is very attuned so he assigns the right people to the right jobs before trouble starts, and the journalists so assigned naturally work quite sincerely. No actual orders to publish or withdraw articles need to happen.