Breaking News, Washington Post Edition

Today in Media Disruption came the explosive purge at the Washington Post when one of the country’s great newspapers announced massive layoffs – believed to be approximately 300 people, one-third of its entire staff – and kicked off an enormous restructuring effort that, I guarantee, no one, least of all gajillionaire owner and Amazon ayatollah Jeff Bezos and those he instructed to carry out his orders, have any idea how to pull off or how it will play out. 

The Post will eliminate its sports department, its books department, its news podcast and will severely cut back foreign bureaus and even local and investigative reporting. Every department took a big hit. All Middle East reporters and editors were turfed, as were correspondents in Iran, New Delhi and Ukraine. Sports reportedly will be covered as a “cultural phenomenon,” whatever that means. 

Executive editor Matt Murray informed staff on a Wednesday morning Zoom call, then later circulated a memo that any line editor would reject, with prejudice, for its obfuscation, double-speak and pusillanimous tone. He began: As we shared in our live stream earlier, the company is taking actions today to place The Washington Post on a stronger footing and better position us in this rapidly changing era of new technologies and evolving user habits. These moves include substantial newsroom reductions impacting nearly all news departments. For the immediate future, we will concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact and that resonate with readers: politics, national affairs, people, power and trends; national security in DC and abroad; forces shaping the future including science, health, medicine, technology, climate, and business; journalism that empowers people to take action, from advice to wellness; revelatory investigations; and what's capturing attention in culture, online, and in daily life. 

As Murray isn’t stupid, he’s certainly aware that the Post already does all of that, and that gutting entire departments and slicing coverage in no way puts a news organization on “stronger footing.” No, the reasons for Wednesday’s purge are contained deeper in the memo – burying the lede, as they say in the news biz. As you know, we have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with periodic constraints on other kinds of spending. We have concluded that the company's structure is too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product. This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward. 

Deep down, still this fucking guy

A diminished product “providing stability.” Sure. Do go on: We are producing much great journalism of which we can be proud. As we discuss every day in the news meeting, some of our best work attracts readers and generates subscriptions and engagement. Unfortunately, some does not. Some areas, such as video, haven't kept up with changes in how consumers get news and information. Significantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years. And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience. If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition. 

Of course, this is all about money and costs. The Post has been hemorrhaging subscribers and readers for many months, not the least because of actions by Bezos. Legendary former Post editor Marty Baron, who worked under Bezos for eight years after he bought the paper in 2013, acknowledged the paper’s financial issues but also called out his old boss in a statement Wednesday that read, in part: “The Post’s challenges, however, were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top — from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. 

Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands. The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. 

This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.” Perhaps a suitable way to describe the Post amputation is: Shocking but not surprising. Newspapers and organizations have slashed staff and costs for years, sometimes shuttering entirely, a practice that accelerated when they were no longer run by families and news people but by corporations and business interests more wedded to profits than public service. 

Bezos didn’t buy the Post because of a soft spot for the First Amendment, but because he believed it to be a promising business move. Sure, there’s the prestige and ego boost of owning the outlet that printed the Pentagon Papers, busted open Watergate and is respected around the world. In the end, however, a man who can afford whatever money the paper loses without sweating a drop chose to further diminish his own product for bottom line reasons. Businesses make decisions all the time about the quality of their products or services. Maybe they use cheaper ingredients or farm out customer service to call centers, in the name of maximizing profits. But a newspaper’s sole currency is credibility; once credibility is compromised, it doesn’t come back. 

Again, giving Murray the benefit of the doubt, he knows that it’s not possible to “reinvent” journalism. Changing times may mean re-examining how stories are presented. New technology may assist the process. Maybe priorities shift, or reporting is pared back or expanded in certain areas. Maybe voices are added or subtracted, either in the storytelling or editing. But journalism requires pretty much the same formula as a hundred years ago: people asking questions, doing research, explaining how and why something matters. Though maybe Murray is on to something, as the new Washington Post writes about Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and Caps’ all-timer Alex Ovechkin and Wizards guard Trae Young as cultural phenomena. Hasn’t been tried.

Re-shaping The Discussion

It appears that elfin delivery magnate and newspaper dilettante Jeff Bezos saw fellow billionaire and serial ass-fez Elon Musk’s attempts to trample institutions and antagonize copious numbers of people and thought: Why should he have all the fun? 

Bezos continued his Solitaire Jenga of the Washington Post with a memo to staffers outlining an editorial shift that sent shock waves through the newsroom and beyond. He said the Post’s opinion pages will write every day “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” 

On its face, it’s a cheerleader call-to-arms. After all, who’s against personal liberty and free markets? (the Bolsheviks in the audience may want to sit this one out) Read more closely, however, and it’s a vague framework with more questions than answers and a fundamental misread of society and the role of newspapers. It’s the sort of memo written by someone whose wealth insulates them from the day-to-day and who builds a rocket ship for tourist junkets by other rich thrill-seekers. 

Here’s the full Bezos:

I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job. I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. I offered (Editorial Page Editor) David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction. I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.

We live in a time when some have more liberty and are more free than others, the levels of which are often determined by money and race and class structure. In a society that’s increasingly gamed toward the wealthy and with a yawning income inequality gap, free markets ain’t exactly free for everybody. If an exercise of “personal liberty” offends or harms someone or some group, is that fair game or off limits for the Post editorial board? Do “free markets” include polluters and sweatshops where apparel seamstresses and shoemakers provide cheap goods without a squawk about hours and wages? How about corporate subsidies? Since when is free money part of free markets? Does Bezos, who’s made gazillions as Amazon honcho, want this new emphasis on personal liberties and free markets to champion everyone? Unclear, though his track record suggests not. 

Remember that the Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon in Sept. 2023, alleging monopolist and unfair business practices. The suit said that Amazon stifled if not squashed competition in multiple ways, manipulated prices and overcharged businesses, all while keeping wages criminally low and labeling many employees as gig workers to limit compensation and benefits. In the hands of the ultra-wealthy, phrases such as “personal liberty” and “free markets” are less aspirational and more license that translates to: “I get to do what I want.” For Bezos to justify the editorial shift by flippantly saying that the internet now does the job that newspapers did in the past is both tone-deaf and inaccurate. 

Sure, you can find all the contrarian takes you like on the interwebs. Few of them come with the heft and credibility of one of the nation’s most recognized, if increasingly self-immolating, newspapers. This is what happens when a newspaper becomes a possession rather than a public trust. Newspapers are supposed to speak truth to power – comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, and all that; don’t pair the As and Cs. They have a responsibility to readers and to their communities, and should not be subject to the whims of the owner (your citation of William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch is so noted). 

You might recall that Bezos torqued off plenty of people inside and outside the Post last fall when he pulled an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris for President. He reasoned that presidential endorsements are outdated, unlikely to sway public opinion and demonstrate bias. In the aftermath of that decision, the paper lost a reported 250,000 digital subscribers. Does Bezos think going all-in on personal liberties and free markets will suddenly motivate Fox News viewers and Wall Street Journal subscribers to flock to the Post? Or will it make up for whatever the fallout is after this announcement? Doubtful. 

The man’s not stupid. The likely conclusion is that he made a calculation and is willing to follow through. He believes that he’s landed on a mission and now has a powerful platform to advocate for it. And he has money to burn, which not only entitles but blinds him. 

The last graf of Bezos’s memo is also a tell. The idea that free markets and personal liberties are “underserved” in the present news and opinion landscape is laughable. Look no further than the current occupant of the Oval Office and his inauguration, where billionaires and CEOs had better seats than Cabinet appointments, if you want a read on the impact of free markets and personal liberties. Look at the popularity of Fox News and the growing reach of Sinclair Broadcasting and its greasy affiliates and the aforementioned Wall Street Journal. Look at the consolidation of media and entertainment companies by corporate interests. 

Newspapers have been snapped up by hedge funds and vulture capitalists, who aren’t exactly going Marx and Engels on the editorial pages. Heck, today’s conservative movement and its mouthpieces have so glorified capitalism and the pursuit of wealth that any mention of government regulation or more equitable taxation is demonized as anti-business and anti-freedom and a bobsled run to communism. No, what Bezos and his ten- and eleven-figure bros want is validation. For them, America’s greatness isn’t as an idea but as a vehicle for extraction. Money isn’t enough. They all have plenty of that anyway. They want to hear that it’s good and right and noble to accumulate and acquire, that they’re the richest and smartest and bestest boys in the whole wide world. A newspaper with national cachet banging the drum every day is a swell addition to the club. Your move, Elon.