The deep cuts at The Washington Post – over 300 roles eliminated and sections like sports and books eviscerated – have many proximate causes. Some that come to mind:
Editorial drift. This is the preferred explanation of management. See CEO Will Lewis telling the newsroom, “Nobody is reading your stuff.” A media brand now needs to be essential. And too often the Post, which had an eSports spinoff, fell prey to being “everything to everyone,” as editor in chief Matt Murray put it in his memo announcing the layoffs. The generalist mode of daily newspapers is embedded in their DNA and not fit for purpose in a decentralized media ecosystem. The Post is now course correcting to focus on core coverage areas in politics, national and national security. Murray also flicked at the regular oligarch hobbyhorse that the Post became too progressive, saying “too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.” This is hard to square with the success of The New York Times and the Post losing 250,000 subscribers after owner Jeff Bezos pulled its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Scale addiction. The Great ComScore War of 2015 is not in most history books. It didn’t last long and stayed at the level of public relations. In the afterglow of Bezos supposedly riding to the rescue on his billionaire stallion in 2013, the Post was positioning itself as a national news brand on par with The New York Times. Chasing uniques turned out to be a recipe for disaster: Search traffic to the Post is down by half in the last three years, according to Murray’s memo. The industry overall is in a state of compression, and the Post is not immune to the hangover.
Lack of product innovation. All news publishers have a product problem. “Some areas, such as video, haven’t kept up with changes in how consumers get news and information,” Murray wrote. The insanity of this industry means in short time we have had a pivot to video, a regret of pivoting to video, and a regret to not pivoting to video. Bezos taking over the Post raised the expectations that surely a customer-focused product genius would fix this in a snap. Not so. The Post tried its hand at being a CMS vendor when that was the rage and bet on building its own ad tech when that too was popular. Neither worked. The Post now has interesting ideas around audio as the new news interface, but it is nowhere near The New York Times in evolving its news product. It saw TikTok success under Dave Jorgenson, only to have him leave to start his own operation after taking a buyout. Its talent incubator, WP Ventures, has had modest impact.
Poor leadership. All of the above are factors. And yet the Post has struggled far more than its peers – and with a tremendous brand, stocked newsroom and hometown market that’s exploded in wealth as the federal government becomes ever bigger. Fred Ryan had a rocky tenure. Marty Baron’s replacement, Sally Buzzbee, didn’t work. Will Lewis was being investigated by his newsroom and had his choice for editor, Robert Winnett, scuttled. The newsroom has clearly lost faith entirely with leadership, as shown by former Post political reporter Ashley Parker’s searing critique, fittingly published in The Atlantic, which has probably been the biggest beneficiary of the Post’s woes.
Identity crisis. Murray’s memo closes with a copy and paste of the Post’s mission statement: “To produce riveting and distinct journalism of the highest caliber that breaks news, explains the world with authority and fairness, empowers people with knowledge, and helps them live better-informed lives.” The Post has long been caught in between. In some ways it was a local newspaper but its hometown was the seat of the U.S. government. It’s easy to say it should have flooded the zone of DC coverage that has spawned Politico and Axios (both started by Post veterans), Punchbowl, Semafor, Puck, and so on. Feeding at the trough of public affairs spending is far less risky. The market has turned to reward the specific to the general, and the Post has been unable to define its identity.
I find all of those very persuasive and yet incomplete. Ultimately, the problems at the Post come down to Bezos. You can handwave all you want about exogenous factors. He bought this asset 13 years ago and has had more than enough time to figure out a path to only end up in this situation. His seemingly endless midlife crisis should have ended a long time ago. Say what you want about Elon Musk, he’d have taken his sleeping bag out a while ago. Bezos has instead acted like he acquired a series of car dealerships after watching some passive income influencer’s YouTube videos.
I will not run through the awful record that billionaires have racked up stewarding news businesses. When Chris Hughes was flailing at The New Republic, you could chalk it up to him being a minor role in The Social Network. Sheldon Adelson was an unmitigated disaster at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Patrick Soon-Shiong has struggled in his ownership of The Los Angeles Times. Marc Benioff has settled for Time to be a frenetic activations brand with a plausible journalistic operation. But not all billionaires. John Henry has proven an adept owner at The Boston Globe. And Laurene Powell-Jobs bankrolled a transition at The Atlantic to be a talent-led organization that has poached many of the Post’s best. The business is ambitious and profitable.
It’s unclear to me what Bezos wants the Post to be or why he wants to own it. Remember, he made sure to claim ownership of the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan in the resistance era, when coincidentally that kind of thing got you social capital. When it became a liability to his real businesses – the AWS contract with the Pentagon was worth magnitudes more than the value of the Post. He made a sensible business decision in tanking the Kamala Harris nomination — at least from the perspective of his overall interests. It was also a terrible decision for the health of the Post. This is again a case of a first principles thinker not considering second-order effects. If you own a media business, it comes with headaches as well as fun parties and political cachet.
The Post’s diminishment is a real loss. Bezos deserves all the criticism he gets, not just for his ham-fisted track record but for his galling lack of accountability. I’m well aware that news organizations need to have sustainable business models and even billionaires do not want to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no entitlement, and we live in a capitalist system. This is still a black mark on his record and legacy. Say what you want about Elon Musk, I suspect he’d have brought out his sleeping bag to fix this. Bezos has preferred cheesy yacht parties. That’s his choice as an owner, but it should come at a reputational cost.
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