Since his arrival at the struggling newspaper, Washington Post publisher and CEO Will Lewis has fought to reverse the plunge in revenue and readership to save this great American newspaper. His greatest challenge has been the staff itself, which seems willing to embrace bankruptcy rather than give up its bias. This week, Lewis sent another warning to his intransigent staff: get on board or get out.
I have written about Lewis’s fight to save the Post from itself over the years. Many writers and editors seemed to believe that owner Jeff Bezos would run the newspaper as a type of vanity project, bankrolling the operation as readers leave en masse.
They were wrong. Bezos seems to believe that the Post should write for people other than themselves and even make a profit.
Lewis, a former British media executive, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a staffer. Lewis explained that, while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was now at stake:
“We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response was fury from the staff, which called for Lewis and other new editors to be scrapped.
Some staffers could not get past the gender and race of those who would oversee them. One staffer complained, “We now have four White men running three newsrooms.” The Post has been buying out staff to avoid mass layoffs, but reporters are up in arms over the effort to turn the newspaper around.
Bezos wants the Post to be a viable newspaper again and some of us who once wrote for the Post applauded his efforts. However, writers who have contributed to the free fall of the Post were apoplectic.
Amanda Katz, who resigned from the Post’s opinion team at the end of 2024, offered a vivid example of the culture that Bezos is trying to change at the Post. Katz said the change was “an absolute abandonment of the principles of accountability of the powerful, justice, democracy, human rights, and accurate information that previously animated the section in favor of a white male billionaire’s self-interested agenda.”
The most telling condemnation came from Post columnist Philip Bump, who wrote “what the actual f**k.” Not surprisingly, Bump wrote the condemnation on Bluesky, a site that promises a type of safe space for liberals who do not want to be triggered by opposing views.
Bump previously had a meltdown in an interview when confronted about past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that it stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.
We have previously discussed the sharp change in culture at the Post, which became an outlet that pushed anti-free speech views and embraced advocacy journalism. The result was that many moderates and conservatives stopped reading the newspaper.
Lewis is still laboring to return the Post to objective journalism. He is even using the language of the left in encouraging them to “reinvent” or “reimagine” the Post. He discussed the Post’s “reinvention journey” it has taken in recent months, including its “reimagining” of its opinion pages that “champion American values” among other company initiatives.
“The moment demands that we continue to rethink all aspects of our organization and business to maximize our impact. If we want to reconnect with our audience and continue to defend democracy, more changes at The Post will be necessary. And to succeed, we need to be united as a team with a strong belief and passion in where we are heading.
I understand and respect, however, that our chosen path is not for everyone,. That’s exactly why we introduced the voluntary separation program. As we continue in this new direction, I want to ask those who do not feel aligned with the company’s plan to reflect on that. The VSP is designed to support you in making this decision, give you the ability to weigh your options thoughtfully and with less concern about financial consequences. And if you think that it’s time to move on to a new chapter, the VSP helps you take that next step with more security.”
In other words, please leave now.
In some ways, Bezos and Lewis have faced the same challenge as executives at other companies, from Facebook to X, in changing a culture. You cannot do it with a staff created for an entirely different purpose. The Post has spent years advancing advocacy journalism over objectivity, promulgating false claims, and feeding the echo chamber on the left.
One of the reasons that X was able to make such a rapid turnaround is that Musk got rid of much of the staff. Facebook has also been pushing for massive staff reductions and changes. The problem at the Post is not the ship, it is the crew.
Many of us are rooting for Lewis in seeking to right this ship. We need the Washington Post back as a leading newspaper committed to traditional journalism.
I will be a contrarian here and wish the Post, Mr. Bezos and Mr. Lewis luck. I personally like to read the news, not have it read to me by actors(which is what most news hosts are). I think there can still be newspapers that survive in the future either as a print medium or a combination of print, internet, y-tube or whatever.
A new combination of news, delivered in an unbiased manner, with links to advocacy groups pushing different views, research vehicles for the non researcher, historical trends explored and explained, context, and other aspects of news and information.
A bright group with a goal of delivering all the news, broken down into different segments of the country, different and ongoing changes and events, specialty groups and interests could really be possible. I would think a truly original Washington Post could be a real one stop shopping for all news, and available in a format that helps dig as deep and shallow as the you (the customer) wants.
The present acolytes that infest the Post are so focused on their advocacy of the left wing that they have truly missed the incredible possibility of building a true source point where all information you want resides. Just like Amazon can almost literally get you any object you want. But you have to be truthful and deliver a good product.
And so now again rises the concept of objectivity. When you define objectivity as the absence of bias it presupposes conformity to certain rules of evidence and in turn the process by which you present this evidence in judgment form. The judgment becomes the product of the reporting agency. This is a requirement of the viewing public. They demand that the judgment process be a “valid ” syllogism and one presented by a thoughtful agent. Having the news scripted and then read by the selected actor generates skepticism in the listeners. Whose thought is this? Who edits the final product. Right back to the speech issues presented in the many supreme court cases of the 2024 session that addressed the protected efforts of those issuing the comments and sanitizing their forum in the interest of objectivity. This is not about the post, this is about the law that gives direction to the post and in turn, the evidence that supports the application that law. Reporters must be academically trained, not just cute and manipulated. The representation of current facts up for interpretation need to be presented in conformity with the existing rules that make determinations on objectivity, not just sensationalism which is goal of the thoughtless, the self- serving and regrettably the mendacious.
Agree. Mr. Bezos can pressure colleges and universities to educate journalists because he has jobs to fill. A mere 4 years and it’s done. Merit.
Bezos seems to primarily sympathize with the political left. How much personal and financial patience do you anticipate him exerting to impose a political neutrality that largely runs contrary to his own beliefs, while taking moderate to heavy losses on WaPo? I would expect that patience to be quite limited. My bet is that he takes the first buy-out offer he gets that doesn’t represent a truly catastrophic loss, assuming that is even possible at this point. Otherwise, he may just accept its bankruptcy at some (not too far distant) future point.
WAPO needs to simply Clean House, Fire the entire staff bring in Real Reporters, not Social Justice or Left Wing Woke Radical Dems. Report the real news not Left Wing or Deep State news.
The Journalism schools seem to produce nothing but the kind who live at WAPO. I don’t think they’re going to find it easy to find a supply of good replacements.
Which means they need to train them from the ground up. Good Luck.
YES, that’s a serious point, Jim. Turn colleges and universities around and the replacements will be online in 4 years with job offers waiting! Four years is just one presidential term! Return to merit! The best and brightest … everyone benefits.
*. ^^^. Thinking about colleges and universities and merit, consider the research biologists, the research scientists and the merit they have. It’s humbling. Now consider the misconceptions of the DEI people and what has been done to universities. That’s frightening. Now consider the misconceptions of DEI and what has been done to the government. That’s ruination.
The reason colleges and universities are returning to merit for critical jobs. Journalism schools will teach Journalism and not advocacy. Bozos can pressure because he has jobs to fill. It’ll take 4 years to put it back.
*
Bezos ^^
His wedding looked like a party of V- a- Mp i-r€s.
The problem with trying to change the culture in these far left newsrooms is in the talent pool. The newsrooms are the product of far left journalism schools who have been turning out 2 generations of rabid Marxists. So the current crop of ideologues leaves, where do you find real jornailists to replace them?
Yes, it is the crew, not the ship that is the problem. It seems they think it is their ship and not Bezo’s. They think they should, as some socialist commune group think, be the ones who give the orders, regardless of what rocks or ice burgs are before them. Rather than change course and save themselves from their own bias and advocacy journalism, they would drive the ship at flank speed right into the rocks.
I think Lewis’s VSP is much to kind. What WaPo needs if it is to survive is mass layoffs of these mutinous and useless advocacy journalists.
” What WaPo needs if it is to survive is mass layoffs of these mutinous and useless advocacy journalists”
That works only as long as the public continues to abandon the MSM outlets so that they take ongoing significant financial losses, and cannot afford to pay huge salaries to new hires. Otherwise the fired WaPo employees will just use their dismissal as a positive resume bullet point and jump to a more sympathetic employer.
The media has been useful for 15 years and they’ve done their work. It doesn’t matter if they fold and the phoneys are registering as independents to now blend in. Deceit is their game.
Take the media anyway.
When I worked in “Corporate” I think it was a McKinsey consultant who told our management team, during a restructuring, “If you can’t change the people, change the people.”
I do recall that. And I recall thinking then, as I do now, that it was the only time I agreed with McKinsey.
If people had to pay for MSNBC or CNN they would go out of business and the WAPO is like those two networks and therefore is dying.
I was a huge Boston Globe reader many years ago (before I moved to a red state) and I even read the NY Times quite often, but I canceled the Globe before I even left the Boston area because it just went too far off of what I considered being a worthwhile investment.
Papers like the Times, WAPO, the Boston Globe and the LA Times are a joke these days. I read RealClearPolitics and I see articles from the LA Times and they are so far left insane that I never even bother looking at them. I read more rational left of center columns, but I won’t waste my time on the drivel that comes out of organizations like the LA Times, the Guardian or Salon. They are literally paper versions of MSNBC. They are lefty lunatics.
PS. Philip Bump is a joke, a male joke wearing lady’s glasses. A thin skinned, far left partisan hack.
I agree, Hullbobby. I stop using a media source once I find any deliberate, calculated lies. I haven’t got time to do my job and factcheck them, too. Factchecking is their job. Why would I pay for propaganda when I can just listen to politicians for free?
I can add The Atlantic to your list of usual suspects.
Diogenes, your point about the need to factcheck the factcheckers is a great example of another reason why these dinosaurs are dying out.
Thanks for adding the Atlantic, I don’t know how I could have forgotten that rag when discussing sites that are too insane to even read. Ever since Kamala’s bestie took over and Jeffrey (“sources tell me”) Goldberg became the editor in chief it has fallen even further down the proverbial rathole.
” I haven’t got time to do my job and factcheck them, too”
I’m retired, so I have more time than you. Nevertheless, I tend to entirely ignore “fact checkers” of all stripes. I do not see any consistent financial incentive for an independent fact checker to honestly to that job. Absent such an incentive, the market dictates that virtually all of them will be influenced to spin or even lie in their analysis. I try to analyze for truth at the source level. That isn’t easy or quick, but it is (imo) all that we really have.
Interesting that Will Lewis is being held up as a paragon of journalistic purity.
He has a long history of criminal malfeasance in running newspapers.
He ran the News of the World paper owned by Rupert Murdoch in the UK. During his tenure reporters at the paper were accused of hacking the phones and emails of multiple celebrities, members of the Royal Family and members of Parliament. He presided over a coverup of the hacking by defying a court order to preserve evidence.
Several reporters at the paper were sentenced to prison for their role in the phone hacking.
Many of the celebrities whose phones were hacked sued for damages.
The paper paid out over $1.5 billion in damages and was forced to close.
Last year, a reporter at the Washington Post wrote an article about Lewis’s past history.
Lewis tried to kill the story, causing several resignations of the editorial staff.
In some ways, Bezos and Lewis have faced the same challenge as executives at other companies, from Facebook to X, in changing a culture. You cannot do it with a staff created for an entirely different purpose.
Now imagine them being unremovable, given special protection by rogue judges, given sanctuary by cities and states that support the “different” purpose they are here, defended by NGO’s, funded by hostile foreign actors, and suddenly WaPo’s problems seem insignificant.
Brilliant. Spot on!
Thank you Mary.
Olly: great addition to this morning’s discussion.
“Now imagine them being unremovable, given special protection by rogue judges, given sanctuary by cities and states that support the “different” purpose they are here, defended by NGO’s, funded by hostile foreign actors,…”
But Why? What is that “entirely different purpose?” Why are “they” here? What is the desirable END GOAL here that protects the means/aid and assistance that you correctly call out?
Until we are able to incisively articulate that, our scattered responses are just blowin’ in the wind.
(“But Why?” -meaning, “But why this effort to….?”)
*. The core or kernel of the “why” is redistribution of wealth and property. Socialism isn’t the real goal. Socialism is being used as a buzzword to rally the masses. The goal is redistribution. The final goal is redistribution, power to put you in chains.
Who’ll stop them? We’ll see. So far they’ve physically hit the Pentagon and the Towers. Very odd indeed.
Great, great story. Lin, g#d is quite real and his clock is the universe and not ours except as doing his will known or unknown .
Why are “they” here?…Until we are able to incisively articulate that, our scattered responses are just blowin’ in the wind.
Good question lin. I asked myself that same question regarding this blog; why am I here? There was a time I was here to learn more about the constitution, the law, politics, and so on. While that learning process won’t stop, one thing I’ve learned is this great experiment of ours has proven that while we can function with some opposition to the constitutional order, we suck at removing them from the experiment altogether. In fact, we seem to want to test our luck by adding as much opposition as possible until we reach total failure. That’s suicidal.
I believe we need to reevaluate the experiment and remove from the equation everything that has proven to be detrimental to it. In other words, don’t design the experiment for failure.
AA was removed.
“I believe we need to reevaluate the experiment and remove from the equation everything that has proven to be detrimental to it. In other words, don’t design the experiment for failure.”
How to “go back” seems to me to be a difficult thought problem. Enough balance is required in a political system that the people can decide what is in their best interests, without egregiously infringing on the interests of others, and I think that our “experiment” initially did a pretty good job of providing for that. The problem comes when that those who have been granted (or have surreptitiously adopted) power within a system have removed a great many of those choices as they were originally envisioned, occasionally in large chunks, but mostly in a myriad of small steps, so that all, or nearly all, of the remaining choices benefit only a ruling elite. The real question is whether there is any possible process that can operated within the existing system to undo at least the most critical of those encroachments in some reasonable period of time. I consider one human generation to be the maximum span practicable. Otherwise the options are stark: accept the abuses of the system; or attempt to outright overthrow it by revolution and/or secession. Personally, I think Franklin was prescient about the future of the Republic, and that we fulfilled his negative expectations quite some time ago.
*. The po’ must be self sufficient and non-polluting, they thought (the very wealthy). We can’t be concerned with their crime, disease, starvation so let’s teach them to work for others, socialism. It failed. It increased the problems.
It’s being thrown out now and moving back to merit and common sense. The wealthy will wall themselves off in utopic abundance and not look back.
Ever vigilant .
# I wish you’d elaborate on profiling. I enjoyed what you’ve written. Common profiling is very different from the steps taken in legal profiling with sort of a sifting matrix.
Thanks
Professor Turley writes, “His greatest challenge has been the staff itself, which seems willing to embrace bankruptcy rather than give up its bias.”
Disney and Wapo are perched on the horns of a dilemma: permanent ruin or a brutal purge. “Let that sink in.”
For any CEO’s that might bother to listen, this is now how nearly all these Ivy-League graduates are now. They would rather burn your company to the ground than return it to the shareholders. If you hire them, it’s like letting Dracula cross your threshold.
As for any WaPo writers who might happen to read this, most Americans are sick of your godless sanctimony. Get out.
After all these years it’ll be hard (maybe impossible) to put the genie back in the bottle at WP. Did you say Philip Bump 😂.
A quibble: “I have written about Lewis’s fight to save the Post from itself OVER THE YEARS” (I’m not having any luck here making a raised eyebrow emoji) Lewis began his WaPo CEO duties January 4, 2024. Appears that “over the months” would be more appropriate. Or just omit the duration comparative.
Years and years ago, there was a cafe in a small town near where I grew up. The owner was a crusty old woman but the food she cooked was simple but good. A sign hung over her door that read, “We Feed ‘Em, Don’t Fool ‘Em.”
I miss the ritual of reading the morning paper, especially the Sunday edition. That ended after COVID. It was getting worse by the day years before then.
One could, to a large degree, rely on what one read was likely true. Opinion was reserved for the editorial. National news was thirty minutes and local news was the same. Now the 24/7 monster must be fed.
It is Caveat Emptor! One must sift through multiple streams of data and take on the role of editor, weighing every bit of information and determining if it is true.
No wonder they have hemorrhaged readership (viewership).
The staff may be young but what is the average age of the remaining readers?
I gave up my WAPO online subscription soon after the WAPO editors insisted that Philip Bump’s delusions were factual. I’ve come to realize that WAPO is burnt toast, and that not even Jeff Bezos can un-burn burnt toast.
They made this bed so let them lie in it. They hired all these woke, young, entitled “journalists” to be cool and hip. They underestimated the average Joe, who couldn’t care less about what pronoun you want to be called. I fear it is too late for this country- we have stepped too deep in the leftist doodoo pile.
I fear you are correct. This ain’t gonna end pretty.
The fact that you would give up on your country by surrendering to your fears — that is much more a threat than anything the wacko left is trying to do. There are signs all around that the grip of progressive leftists is weakening — are you paying attention to them?
This is the time for conservatives to get very clear about what we want to accomplish. Rebuilding the nuclear family as the mainstream kinship system. Finally tackling the crime-infested, borderless internet design pushed upon us by expedient techies (who still harbor a dismissive/defiant attitude toward rule-of-law and diligent law enforcement).
Standing up to the AI lobbyists who don’t believe the public should have any say over public policy.
The left has blundered badly, but beware of casting blame as a not-too-subtle way of eschewing responsibility.
Oppo-policy is low-info and brain-dead. Let’s tackle the huge, gnarly problems like family formation, cybercrime waged from foreign shores, and AI — and snuff out the “can’t do” resignation. We are Americans and can solve any problem we are willing to face up to honestly. These complex problems cannot be solved emotionally, especially pandering to negative emotions. They require a return to an inquisitive, cerebral, dispassionate yet highly determined mindset.
I believe you are capable of that.
Sure. No prob
I’m not convinced, as Turley is, that we “need” The Washington Post. In the world of business and economics, there’s a powerful force likened to Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. The market, not the media or any individual slice of the press, determines whether the customers are “buying” it. In the case of The Washington Post, the customers are turning away from its biases.
This is ironic because Amazon.com killed off the shopping malls, and the shopping malls previously killed off the mom-and-pop stores. Now it’s time for the pods, cable news networks, and the Internet to kill off things like The Washington Post and the NY Times. It’s as natural as evolution in the animal world.
People tend to move toward the truth, and any news outlet that shaves the truth will be quickly dismissed. Will Lewis has a tough job. He is trying to save the “Pandas” in an age when Mother Nature is telling us and them that it’s time to go. We can slow but not stop evolution, and the newspaper business in America and elsewhere is quickly moving toward extinction.
“I’m not convinced, as Turley is, that we “need” The Washington Post”
WaPo is intended to be the paper of record for an omnipotent Federal government concentrated in DC. We need to do away with the latter, in both ambition and practice, which would render the former pointless.
The Post is indeed a part of the nation’s “record,” but I’m not sure if this status was ever an “intention” of anyone. There is no official or legal basis for this honorary title. It’s customary at best and a leftover from the days when media outlets and newspapers were committed to the facts, not the assumed ideologies or biases of their followers. Are you suggesting doing away with “DC”? If so, disregard this reply; such silliness does not warrant it.
“Are you suggesting doing away with “DC”? ”
Are you suggesting that we should accept the unconstitutional concentration of power that is today’s Federal government? If not, what is your proposed remedy? There are several possibilities for diluting that power, and I doubt any one of them would suffice alone (I actually doubt this will happen at all). Geographic relocation of some powerful agencies so that a single, central, locus of power is broken up has been proposed more than once, and I think that tactic has at least some positive potential. There is certainly no guarantee, and the probability is against success. However, aspersions on the possibility of making this correction via legislation and the ballot box are imo just as easily cast.
There are podcasts with journalistic integrity and there are others pushing out infowarfare using infotainment principles. In other words, it’s the audience that will decide what standards of journalism our country will still have 5 years from now. The media operators will simply respond with whatever the audience will pay attention to.
Yes, that’s correct, it’s always the audience that makes it or breaks it for podcasts, cable news, newspapers and other forms of news and entertainment.
*. Whatever journalism and it’s sister infotainment move into let’s hope it’s positive and sensible and unemotional. If I’m going to be socially engineered it won’t be by drag queens and socialism nor polytheism.
Shopping malls aren’t dead, just diminished. Mostly they sell stuff that people have to try on to be sure it fits, restaurants, and massage parlors.
They are not all dead; you’re correct. Most are dying because they cannot compete with the cheap prices of websites like Amazon.com. And yes, some people go to the mall to try on the clothes but a lot of these then ho home and order the same or similar stuff online. Just like there are some mom-and-pop stores left here and there, some malls no doubt will survive longer than others but all are doomed. It’s a natural and progressive outcome of time.
The upscale malls in my area are doing well. Less expensive stores are being replaced by very expensive stores, which will not be on Amazon. If Arnault’s LVMH stores are there and growing, the mall will remain.
I still prefer walking through the market squeezing avocados, choosing melons and lettuce without brown spots. Delivery is a good service when housebound or ill but markets have a place.
The nonglare paper delivered is good with coffee and armchair. There’s a market. I kept old , really old copies of The New Yorker until someone walked in and stole them of course. I kept really old vinyl record albums with incredible artwork on the sleeves until someone stole those, too.
How about working on a bit of honesty while everyone’s at it or would that be profiling or targeting people for crime?
“Shopping malls aren’t dead, just diminished. Mostly they sell stuff that people have to try on to be sure it fits, restaurants, and massage parlors.”
Meh. Amazon offers 30 day returns with free shipping back to them and full refunds for most items, including clothing. That allows customers to not only “try on” clothing, but also “try out” devices, so that touted mall advantage pretty much vanishes. Restaurants originally migrated to malls because the magnet retailers drew in crowds of people who would become hungry while shopping; that draw disappeared with those retailers. A disadvantage to restaurants is that several direct competitors are typically very close at hand. The massage parlors were drawn in when the lease and rentals rates became cheap after the departure of those magnet stores – that is a symptom of decline similar to the ghettofication of inner city neighborhoods, it is not a strength.
Turley notes that many thought Bezos would run the post as a “vanity project”
The post is a Vanity project for Bezos.
Bezos wants to be the owner of one of the most respected papers in the world.
And is willing to pay for that priviledge
The problem is that the declining readership is also a measure of the declining respect and credibility of the Post.
Now One wants to be the owner of a has been whose days of influence and prestige are gone.
The current meaning of TDS is Trump Derangement Syndrome but it could be Truth Derangement Syndrome. Just as the Biden big shots attempted to replace the Presidency for a Halloween Costume the Leftists were able to hire enough protestors to manufacture rioters but no electors.
“but it could be Truth Derangement Syndrome.”
I think that “Truth Disparagement Syndrome” might be somewhat closer to the idea you are trying to convey. YMMV.
The Staff of the Post and the rest of the MSM should not need to take their cues from Lewis – they should listen to the voice of the people – most clearly expressed by the collapse in the Posts readers.
Purportedly the left is shifting from identity politics back to more traditional socialism.
The left can shift the values it is shilling as it pleases. Success REUIRES that those values appeal to free people making free choices aka the free market.
It should be clear to all that Socialism is totalitarian specifically because it does not work and can not be maintained absent FORCING people to follow it.
The left rants about the woes of capitalism – but all it is, is free people making free choices.
People may get confused by labels. they may breifly be seduced by lies about free stuff – there is no such thing s a free meal
Someone ALWAYS must pay, and in the long run it MUST be all of us.
Regardless Bezos and Lewis are being too coddling.
Those who ruined the MSM should be summarily FIRED – and other outlets would be wise not to Hire those who ran some of the great media institutions of this country into the ground.
Turley noted that Musk solve the problem by firing almost everyone.
As draconian as that sounds it is probably the LEAST painful way to correct.
It is far better to clean house, to make clear to nearly all that it is time for them and WP to get a fresh start, then to delay and hold out false hope that tepid mini steps will reverse the posts fortunes as well as those of its staff.
“The Staff of the Post and the rest of the MSM should not need to take their cues from Lewis – they should listen to the voice of the people – most clearly expressed by the collapse in the Posts readers. ”
I see the point you are trying to make but… It is generally conceded that one of the most important duties of a CEO is to set corporate philosophy and goals for the organization he or she heads. If Lewis fails to do that in a manner of which Bezos approves, then Bezos should remove him. Regardless, if WaPo staff fail to follow Lewis’ lead in that regard while he remains CEO, they are insubordinate, and should be disciplined, or dismissed.
Correct
That is how business works in a free market
Those st the top make their best guesses as to what people want
The rest of the company implements those guesses
And the business thrives or suffers based on the success or failure of those guesses
Bezoar is footing the bill
He is the ultimate winner or loser
Lewis is his choice to lead
If you do not like that
Go elsewhere
If Lewis succeeds
He reaps the big rewards
If he fails he is the big loser
The rest of WaPo staff can get behind Lewis
Leave or be fired
If a reporter wants real editorial control
Go out on their own
Lots of people have succeeded on Substack of similar places
Even left wing nuts can often do well enough
But if you want the prestige of WaPo
Then you do as Lewis says
“It should be clear to all that Socialism is totalitarian specifically because it does not work and can not be maintained absent FORCING people to follow it.”
John, excellent point. The problem is today’s youth (under 45) are so disconnected from the reality of the Soviet Union and the facts–not myths–about WWII that they are clueless when it comes to the realities of socialism and it’s fraternal twin, fascism. Force, not cajoling or inspiring, is required to maintain it as most of us Baby Boomers know from watching decades of the Cold War unfold and witnessing countless people defecting from an imagined Utopia. The children and grandchildren of Baby Boomers and the grandchildren and GGchildren of The Greatest Generation have been brainwashed by decades of leftist education, as Marx and Lenin proclaimed was needed to achieve the communist ideal.
John
Look at the numbers for CNN. Talk about a sinking ship.
I appreciate your observation
I am personally happy that an ideology I think is evil is failing
But so long as force aka government is not being used to tilt the playing field people get to make their own decisions for themselves even if I think they are stupid
There are products people but all the time I do not understand
But I stand 100% behind their right to make choices for themselves I think are stupid
I support free speech
But our liberty is not limited to speech
To me there is little difference between
You can’t sell what you wish
And
You can’t say what you wish
There is little difference b tween the right to say things others do not like and to sell things others do not like
Free people have decided NOT to subscribe to WaPo
As a result it is hemorrhaging money
Bezoar can pay up
Or figure out how to attract subscribers
I am free to have an opinion regarding what he should do
But the rewards and failures are Bezos
The decisions are his
If WaPo reporters do not like it
They can go elsewhere
Free markets work
They not only provide what I want an need
But what those I disagree with want and need
Proportionate to the values of each and every individual
And without force
One aspect of advocacy journalism rarely mentioned is that can also be called lazy journalism. Reporters do not need to sift through conflicting reports or questionable sources when they have a narrative as their guide. Almost always their machinations involve race or anti-Trump twists. This is most evident on the advocacy TV news/opinion channels where assorted reporters advance the most bizarre causes or theories for the latest events. Their “regulars” needs only think of a few lines of simply extreme content for each appearance. Preparation is minimal as no facts are needed, having been replaced by innuendo. No daily continuity is needed. Probably, “The View” exhibits this behavior to its most extreme.
Perhaps the WAPO staff is complaining, as well, that objective reporting takes serious work.
Every single thing you complain about regarding the Post and other failing MSM outlets would be an asset rather than a liability if it attracted readers.
The left and their institutions are being punished by the free market because few will pay for the drivel that they shill.
That is the measure of the value of what the Post is producing – whether sufficient people will Buy it.
That is the fundimental difference between free markets and every single other economic and political system.
In a free market – in nearly everything buyers and sellers make their choices freely – and ultimately success comes ONLY when sellers give buyers what they want.
There is no doubt there is a market for the swill that the left is selling – BUT it is a niche market. And the MSM is NOT Niche.
Sellers MUST sell what the market demands or fail.
“whose your daddy” can survive – even thrive because it appeals to a niche Market – but it can not grow to the scale of major media institutions – because that is not a Niche market.
In an actual free market all the values wants and needs of all the many disparate viewpoints of the people get reflected proportionate to those who Truly have those values.
In a free market often even left wing nut socialists prove to be unwitting capitalists, when like everyone else they demand actual value for value in their transactions.
I have yet to meet a left wing nut who will buy a crappy product at a higher price when a better value is available.
It is the freedom of the free market that delivers the choices that allow even left wing nuts to choose a better product at a lower price.
Fundimentally socialism is the effort to deny OTHERS choices different from what you would choose.
“Reporters do not need to sift through conflicting reports or questionable sources when they have a narrative as their guide.”
“The View” may epitomize the degradation of reporting into non-stop editorializing that you speak of, but that began long ago, with “60 Minutes” (1968 – ) being an early (but probably not the first) prominent example.
“. . . lazy journalism.”
That is tragically accurate.
I was once the target of a media smear campaign. I asked a media consultant: “Where do journalists get this garbage?” He replied: “From other journalists?” “Who get their garbage from where?” “From other, other journalists.” . . .
My final question was: “How do you ever discover the ultimate source?” His reply: “You don’t.”
While I don’t read WaPo (and have had to stifle guffaws when people tell me they still do), the real question is whether it is worth saving. Maybe they should let it die and then come back like a Phoenix with a new staff dedicated to real journalism.
Okay, I went away for a bit. Back now. Just let it die
In a free market WaPo will adapt to the market – that is FREE PEOPLE MAKING FREE CHOICES, or it will die.
All the WaPo staff whining is just railing because few want to buy the swill they are selling.
Turley fixates on the lies that have come from WaPo – but if no one cared, if people bought the paper anyway those lies would not matter.
The post is failing because the writers are not producing what readers want.
it is that simple.
Turley is speculating – likely correctly at what is offending readers.
But it honestly does not matter.
If people truly wanted the phony schlock the MSM was shilling – the MSM would be thriving.
Great article- I went from being a big washing and post reader about 1520 years ago to never wanted to read it. I gave up my subscription around 2000. It’s a Catholic and as a Democrat Republican and a pro-life advocate, I couldn’t take their bias in their garbage anymore. It’s sad what’s happened to that newspaper
“I went from being a big washing and post reader about 1520 years ago”
Your apparent typo suggested an alliterative nickname for the WaPo: “Washing in P1$$”. I kinda like it…
It’s sad to see supposed adults fail to disable the autocorrect on their devices before composing a post.
It’s fine. You get it.
I feel absolutely skeptical about the future of any US newspaper. I think 50 years from now, if not sooner, we will look back and wonder why they didn’t expire sooner. I personally predict that YouTube channels are going to start to merge with each other. We will end up with perhaps a big 10 of YouTube news outlets. You can already see some performing better than others. The New York times website has now adopted AI speech readers so we can listen as we go and not have to physically read the text. It won’t take much longer before no one will be demanding the text but will instead want well edited podcasts and collections of video shorts. I think this would be happening no matter how the politics of the newsroom was leaning
I think people just don’t like paying to be lied to and made fools of by a news agency. They can morph into a more modern website instead of a newspaper, but it won’t help unless they start reporting the news and give up on the liberal lies.
The WSJ innovated that ages ago The rubbish the NYT serves up is hard to listen to, as it is to read.
Only those successfully endumbened by our illustrious Education Industry will demand text to speech. The remainder of us will still read.
“I personally predict that YouTube channels are going to start to merge with each other.”
You may be correct, but that would be very unfortunate. I think if we go much further down the road of people relying on video for factual information at the expense of print media, we are in for a massive cultural decline (which is already well underway). Video was pioneered by the film industry, as an improved, more convincing way to tell fictional stories, and telling convincing lies remains one of its most prominent strengths. Yes, lies can also be (and frequently are) also told in print media, but print “holds still” so that you can fairly easily perform source, consistency, and veracity tests on it. That is extremely tedious to do with video, where it is even possible. Video “news” is mostly (and will probably increasingly be) a play on viewers existing biases to “confirm” a subjective message that can be (and, again will increasingly be) false to fact.