James Joyner beat me to posting about the current lay-offs at WaPo, but let me add to the conversation.
One key thought keeps rolling around in my head about the paper’s current situation: pissing off one of your core customer segments was a bad business move. And among the many things that Bezos is responsible for, that is a central part of this story.
Look, I thoroughly understand the problems facing journalism these days, and newspapers in particular. I understand the Post was already in trouble when Bezos bought it, and that the paper’s current business ills are not all his fault.
But.
But there is little doubt that one of the core constituencies within the paper’s subscriber base was college-educated, likely liberal-leaning voters who were concerned about the direction of the federal government under Trump and who wanted serious, forthright journalism that would hold a possible second Trump term to task. You know, the kind of people who liked the adoption of the phrase “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
However, Bezos sent a number of signals as Trump 2.0 was approaching that the paper was not going to be a forthright defender of democracy. For example, the decision 11 days before the election to issue a policy that the paper would not issue endorsements for elected office any longer, even as the editorial board had drafted a Harris endorsement, was a signal to that end.
I will readily agree that there might well be some logic to stopping the tradition of endorsements, which rarely seem to matter in any event. Having no endorsement was not the issue; the issue was the timing of the decision and the signal of taking a pro-Trump stance on the issue. Or, perhaps more to the main point I am making, if some of your subscribers think that a second Trump administration would be an assault on democracy, then the move on endorsements at that moment came across as a signal about Bezos’ shifting attitudes on Trump. At the time, it certainly felt like a Bezos obeying in advance, which was also the vibe of his and other techbros’ contributions to Trump’s inauguration.
Then came a number of high-profile resignations, with editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes’ resignation being one that really sticks in my mind (linked to the techbros contributions noted above). But I would note also Robert Kagan’s resignation over the endorsement issue and
All of this was soon followed by the shift on the editorial page to focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” which, in turn, led to Ruth Marcus’ resignation. Certainly, my interpretation at the time was that Bezos wanted to turn away from discussions of Trump’s assault on democracy and good governance. And it was clearly what a lot of subscribers at the time thought, given the round of cancellations that followed.
Somewhere in all of that mess in early 2025, I decided to cancel my subscription as well, and have only occasionally noticed since.
I am not saying that all of this is the reason for the predicament the paper is in. Again, I understand, as well as a non-expert can, the challenges facing newspapers. Further, I am not trained in business, but I know enough to know that a struggling business should avoid pissing off a core part of its customer base. This was obvious to me a year ago.
By the way, I can certainly understand things like cutting sports, among other cuts. But I think that the core problem, and why this feels a bit like a death spiral to me, is that Bezos has damaged the paper’s reputation to the kinds of people he needs to subscribe. Not only does he need college-educated, left-of-center readers who value good journalism, but it also isn’t like he is going to make up the difference with MAGA types, as they will continue to hold the “mainstream media” in contempt.
I just remain more than a bit amazed at how stupid the last year or so has been in terms of the moves he has made with the paper.
I guess being a billionaire doesn’t mean you are a genius about everything after all.
Who knew?
I would also recommend this morning’s edition of The Daily: Bezos Guts The Washington Post.
