The Washington Post has announced layoffs affecting one-third of its workforce, including most of the sports and foreign news desks. The Washington Post Guild’s response was particularly notable in calling for a new owner who would simply subsidize the newspaper despite its failing revenue and readership.
As someone who once wrote regularly for the Post, I have long lamented how the newspaper became less credible and relevant as it embraced advocacy journalism. It ran raging pieces from columnists such as Phillip Bump, Taylor Lorenz, and Jennifer Rubin, who viciously attacked those with opposing views, promoted conspiracy theories or called for the end of objectivity and neutrality in journalism. Even after other publications admitted that prior stories were hoaxes, the Post stood by clearly false reporting.
Years ago, I wrote that I was baffled by how the staff believed that writing off more than half of the country through biased reporting was a workable business or journalism model.
Readers left in droves. Despite anonymous reporters attacking Jeff Bezos since he purchased the newspaper, they expected him to be a type of sugar daddy who would subsidize their brand of journalism. They were increasingly writing for each other, but they still expected Bezos to lose millions for the privilege of owning the paper.
There is a strange thing about billionaires: they tend to want to make, not lose, money.
That point was driven home brilliantly when new editors were brought in to read the riot act to the staff. Washington Post publisher and CEO Will 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 from staff was furious, calling for the removal of Lewis and other new editors.
If that wasn’t clear enough, management told staff months later that the sniping and obstruction had to stop. The newspaper must be able to sustain itself; if they could not get on board, they would have to leave.
Any business facing millions in losses will do two things simultaneously: work to expand sales and to reduce costs.
However, to do that, the Post must return to a journalism that most people want and value, rather than an echo chamber for MS NOW viewers.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I discuss the decline of the Post and other media due in part to the embrace of advocacy journalism.
We previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with more than 75 media leaders conducted by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view was dismissed as “bothsidesism.”
Once again, the management is trying to save the Post from itself. It is trying to return the newspaper to profitability, but these editors have faced continual resistance from reporters who would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias. The same drama is playing out at CBS and CNN recently.
In some ways, the only thing that might change the culture at the paper could be a staff turnover. Elon Musk showed that at Twitter, now X. Years of hiring advocates do not simply evaporate with a change in management.
The most telling response came from the Washington Post Guild, which declared:
“If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, The Post deserves a steward that will.”
The question is what is “the mission.” The Post staff has driven one of the greatest newspapers in history into near insolvency by yielding to its own bias and impulses. It abandoned most readers while doing little to adapt to the new realities of the media landscape.
The only response from the Guild is that they should have a billionaire who is willing to lose money and subsidize them. It is the most self-indulgent and frankly entitled attitude that they could take at this moment.
The Post is struggling to survive, and the crew is still resisting efforts to alter the ship’s course. It is far from clear that even Jeff Bezos can save the Post, but I hope so. We need the Post and, while painful, it will need to be solvent to survive.
so Democrats believe Hating America and bankrupting it is good
bet following laws and deporting illegals is bad?
It is 1850’s and Democrats are back to trying ripe America apart.
NYT, CNN, WAPO…are just basically DNC outlets!
NO THEY DO NOT. ITS ONLY IN YOUR WARPED MIND.
Jen Rubin is the perfect example of a moderately conservative WaPo writer turning into a raging liberal lunatic.
I first came across JRub during thw Obama administration, when she slammed Barry on a regular basis .I could not figure out why the WaPo had seemingly randomly picked a suburban mom to write a column for the paper. Georgina F. Will she was not. Did she literally know where tbe bodies were buried?
But when Donald Trump replaced Obama JRub started slamming him as well All with the same evident lack of mental effort that was,fer hallmark.
“Jen Rubin is the perfect example of a moderately conservative WaPo writer turning into a raging liberal lunatic.”
Which suggests that she was always a progressive in disguise, just pandering to a particular audience for a bigger salary. Politics and media are chock full of prostitutes like her. In fact, one (Jeanine Pirro) just exposed herself as a member of that nefarious group the other day).
She was always a lunatic, but her reaction to Trump simply revealed her true self.
If a fiercely progressive newspaper cannot survive in a 80-90 % blue city then what can. It has seemed apparent for some time that the present staff of the POST were not going to change. I have been surprised that the CEO, Mr. Lewis, has not already started laying off voices in the regular news staff and not just the Sports and Foreign Desk. It would seem the best bet for the survival of the post would be to go thru the newsroom and fire whole centers of news interests and replace them with new staff.
If the remaining staff becomes aware of what is happening and changes their approach to the news then great but if they don’t then fire another group until you get the product that you want.
Personally I don’t care what happens to the Post. They have killed themselves. What is strange to me is that they cannot seem to comprehend that even in a concentrated area of people of the same persuasion as the POST, they are dying.
The Post staff are blind, deaf and dumb. That is not conducive to survival in this world.
And yet the Post’s reach into the USA and the world is unparalleled. Can’t say that for anonymous commenters.
The Washington Post had 2.5 million digital subscribers in 2023, according to Wikipedia. This placed it third among U.S. newspapers, behind The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Subscriber numbers peaked at nearly 3 million in 2020, driven by increased interest during the Trump presidency and the pandemic, but have since declined.
And it still survives.
The WaPo lost a quarter-million subscribers after it failed to endorse Willie Brown’s bimbo.
“ As someone who once wrote regularly for the Post, I have long lamented how the newspaper became less credible and relevant as it embraced advocacy journalism. It ran raging pieces from columnists such as Phillip Bump, Taylor Lorenz, and Jennifer Rubin, who viciously attacked those with opposing views, promoted conspiracy theories, or called for the end of objectivity and neutrality in journalism.”
Viciously attacked? I always find it amusing when Professor Turley conflates criticism as an “attack”. It’s a disingenuous characterization of the word “criticism,” which he seems to use often when citing those on the left. You can apply the exact same dishonest characterization to Turley’s columns as “attacks on the left.” It’s a rhetorical smear of genuine criticism. Even fair criticism of Turley’s heavily biased or misleading claims is characterized by him as “attacks”.
TS:DR
Maybe the “journalists” at the Post could start a GoFundMe page. Lots of people with no sense at all give to those; look at how much Brian Thompson’s murder has taken in!
“Maybe the “journalists” at the Post could start a GoFundMe page.”
If they do that, I truly hope someone hacks it and absconds with all of the funds. Those spewing rectums deserve to starve.
Ah the Fascist Socialist Democrats….ran out of another person money for their propaganda rag.
WAPO should be sued out of existence for its lying!
The other question is what Bezos really wants. I don’t believe he’s just a capitalist trying to make a buck without any kind of political axe to grind and I certainly don’t believe he has any real interest in objective truth. What I believe he wants is to make money via a more convincing regurgitation of the official narrative du jour.
I believe (based on his history) that he would like to return to a more centrist, pseudo-objective form of leftist propaganda that could fly under the radar as “objective reporting.” In short, he wants the 90’s back.
So do we Jeff, so do we. But unfortunately life doesn’t have a reverse gear, so what happens next?
I don’t know. What role does print journalism have in an increasingly illiterate world? What role does truth have in 2026?
I don’t know the answers. Hopefully Bezos has some idea.
With the lower grade schools doing a horrible job at teaching the 3 R’s, especially reading, newspapers would naturally be on the downswing of the market. Then add journalism schools do not teach critical thinking in presenting an article from a neutral position, you are losing the people that can read. Now add the cell phone with instant news and cra_, and you are going to have a readership of nobody.
The Post staff has missed the most fundamental lesson. Twice. First from a readership leaving like residents of blue states. Now from Jeff Bezos. Do not print yesterday’s news.
Debates over whether a particular outlet is “biased,” “advocacy journalism,” or “telling the truth” are mostly pointless without clearly defined standards for credibility. Without agreed-upon criteria, these arguments collapse into preference. I like what they say. I don’t like what they say. That tells us nothing about journalistic quality.
A more serious approach starts with systems thinking. What is the intended output of journalism? If the output is accurate, verifiable, context-complete information that enables citizens to make informed judgments, then outlets can be evaluated against that standard. If we cannot agree on the output, none of the downstream arguments matter.
Here’s the uncomfortable implication: once standards are defined and measurable, journalism schools and journalism degrees become measurable too. Schools are free to teach advocacy if they wish. But if an outlet wants to call itself a credible news organization and receive privileged access to the most important institutions in the country, that access should be conditioned on meeting objective, transparent standards. Without measurement, journalism is just ideology with credentials. With it, credibility has to be earned.
“Without agreed-upon criteria, these arguments collapse into preference”
Generally agree with the premise, but not to its application to this example. WaPo has on numerous occasions been caught deliberately peddling hoaxes and other false-to-fact allegations as the objective truth. Worse, those well documented lies and distortions have, virtually without exception, favored a specific, uniform, political and social point of view. That is textbook propaganda. Presenting it as “news” is fraud, pure and simple. That judgement is not mere preference; not subject to significantly varying moral interpretation; and is more than sufficient criteria for me to cheer their problems and be hopeful for their demise. I respect your opinions, but I don’t need moral support from you or anyone else to justify that position.
Fair enough, but I wasn’t offering moral support in the first place. I was making an analytical point about standards, not asking anyone to justify their reaction or approval. The “moral support” line feels a bit misplaced, since nothing I said questioned your right to cheer WaPo’s decline or required validation from anyone else.
We may differ on emphasis, but not on the core issue: repeated false reporting is disqualifying. My focus is simply on why that judgment holds and how it should be grounded, not on policing anyone’s response to it.
After pumping up the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, the Post failed in its core mission of providing fair and complete coverage. It is nothing less than the propaganda wing of the Democrat party. Goebbels and the rest of the Socialists throughout history would have loved the Washington Post, pushing out only one side of every story, always slanted towards the far left.
The problem with employees is they’re incapable of thinking like business owners. We have differing objectives.
WaPo has crossed the rubicon. There’s no coming back to a place of respectability. That ship has forever sailed.
“The problem with employees is they’re incapable of thinking like business owners. We have differing objectives.”
That is why the business owners set policy, and employees who take liberties with those policies get fired.
The term “advocacy journalism” is doing too much work and too little thinking.
Every act of reporting reflects judgments about relevance, framing, and emphasis. Writing favorably about one set of facts and critically about another necessarily reflects a position. The real question is not whether a position exists, but by what standards that position is constrained.
If an outlet advocates for accuracy, verifiable facts, contextual completeness, and good-faith engagement with opposing arguments, critics will still label that “advocacy journalism” simply because it produces conclusions they dislike. At that point, “advocacy” becomes a pejorative used to discredit standards rather than to critique their absence.
The meaningful distinction is not advocacy versus neutrality, but standards-based journalism versus unconstrained persuasion. One is disciplined by evidence and correction. The other is disciplined only by audience affirmation.
If “advocacy” means advocating for truth, transparency, and verifiability, then the label tells us nothing about bias and everything about the critic’s discomfort.
No.
Let us do a gedanken experiment. If the WaPo really were a PR arm of the DNC, how qould its news stories be different?
If campaign finance limits didn’t exist, the DNC could buy it and do a better job.
You don’t need a thought experiment to answer that. You just need standards.
If the Washington Post were acting as a PR arm for the DNC, the difference would show up in consistent patterns: selective story choice, asymmetrical scrutiny, framing that presumes one side’s good faith and the other’s bad faith, omission of inconvenient context, and corrections that are delayed or minimized. None of that requires explicit coordination to be real or observable.
That’s exactly why standards matter. When an outlet is disciplined by accuracy, verification, and balance, those patterns are constrained regardless of political outcome. When it isn’t, advocacy emerges through habit, not conspiracy.
The point isn’t whether WaPo is a PR arm. The point is that without measurable standards, you have no way to distinguish journalism from persuasion except by whether you like the conclusions.
“If the Washington Post were acting as a PR arm for the DNC, the difference would show up in consistent patterns: selective story choice, asymmetrical scrutiny, framing that presumes one side’s good faith and the other’s bad faith, omission of inconvenient context, and corrections that are delayed or minimized.”
And this differs from today’s WaPo how, exactly?
It seems the WAPO staff wants an NPR-style deal: You give us money and we’ll give you want we want.
Trump was tough enough to cancel the one. Is Bezos tough enough to cancel the other?
Calls for a “different owner” to restore the mission of the Washington Post miss the point. Institutions reveal their mission through their actions, not their slogans. If you reverse-engineer the Post’s editorial choices, framing, and selective skepticism, you do not see a deviation from standards but a consistent turn toward advocacy. The remedy is not new ownership aligned to a different ideology, but the restoration of enforceable journalistic standards. Without them, ownership changes only determine which faction controls the megaphone, not whether the outlet is credible.
The people currently writing for the Post demonstrate an entitled mentality who’s conduct is appeased, supported and funded . . . Despite its recalcitrant nature.
That game is over folks . . . Welcome to the real world of meritocracy.
Laying off mostly sports and foreign writers? That’s not where the problem seems to be…
Those cuts seem the result of a “bang for the buck” analysis Few bought the WaPo for its sports coverage. And what’s the value-add of a network of foreign corres pondents?
“Laying off mostly sports and foreign writers? That’s not where the problem seems to be…”
Of course it isn’t. But it won’t stop the bleeding either. The next round of lay-offs may be better targeted. Frankly, as long as WaPo is seriously damaged, hopefully terminally, I’m satisfied.
I disagree that “we need the Post.” Clearly, we don’t, any more than we need Harvard, the Democrat party, or any other of the sinking ships so dear to the hearts of the would be intellectual elite.
The world is changing, has changed. The release of the Epstein documents show clearly that while the Post was shoving leftist propaganda down fewer and fewer throats, there was real news happening that nobody wanted to report on.
Can the Post be saved? I think the real question is, can it be resurrected? Because the Post is long dead, or shall we say, Undead. The paper today is a vampire surviving off the increasingly nonconsensual Bezos billions.
Any death and rebirth scenario implies a transformation of some kind. If Bezos wants to save the sinking vampire, he’s going to have to jettison all the dead weight which means not just entitled out of touch propagandists, but almost all the “readers” the Post still retains. Those people are paying for exactly what they’re getting. The problem is that there are not enough of them.
I disagree slightly at the end. While an objective Washington Post would be valuable, it is no longer indispensable. Coverage of the federal government is abundant. Credibility is not. If the Post returns to objectivity, it can recover trust. If not, others will continue to fill the gap.
Olly, the issue isn’t objectivity itself. It’s the inability of those who constantly criticize it, like many on the right, to recognize it. How could they identify objectivity when they can barely distinguish fact from opinion?
Fox News and other right-leaning “news” outlets do not practice objective journalism. Most people on the right regularly watch “news” from networks like Fox News and Newsmax, which, honestly, do not meet Turley’s standards for objective journalism. If Fox News did show genuine objective journalism, it would be quickly condemned by conservatives as “turning leftist” or spreading leftist propaganda.
For decades, the American public has been fed advocacy journalism from outlets like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and others. We are so polarized that many wouldn’t recognize objective journalism even if it were presented to them face-to-face. An even bigger obstacle is that the President and his supporters would criticize and oppose real objective journalism, calling it “the enemy of the people.”
We learned that Alex Pretti was killed. The moment he was murdered in cold blood, Fox News went along with and amplified the lies and gaslighting about Pretti and Good. At the same time, everyone, including Republicans, saw that what actually happened was not what the Trump administration claimed. Fox News barely acknowledged the stark difference between the administration’s narrative and what viewers could see with their own eyes. Instead, Fox News emphasized the false narrative pushed by the Trump administration, advocating for the President’s view rather than reporting the truth visible to all. A citizen was disarmed and shot, while the administration tried to label him a domestic terrorist. All he was doing was trying to help a woman who was being pepper sprayed and shoved to the ground. He never brandished his gun or threatened the federal agent. Everyone saw that. Even Turley, who barely acknowleged that the Trump administration was blatanly lying. If Turley truly wants to see objective journalism he should start with himself. He should set the example.
A busybody, used to spitting on law enforcement and damaging their vehicles, got between ICE and their suspect. He resisted arrest. In the struggle, his concealed weapon was revealed. “Gun!” an officer cried. The gun was removed, but by many reports then discharged. Other officers shot the interloper, believing that,he had fired a weapon.
So, no murder here. At most, involuntary manslaughter, because of mistaken self-defense.
No sympathy. Another progressive rag run into the ground by its idiotic, self-absorbed staff. Good riddance. Th oft circulated saying it: everything the American Left touches turns to s**t.
Nothing but lies, and then they put the lies behind a paywall. There are not that many people that are willing to pay someone to lie to them.
It’s pride folks. It’s labeled as a sin for a reason. Of the most deadly.
They did it to themselves.
Report junk news, lose readers.
Pretty sad when one of the richest person can’t keep you afloat.
No different with the NY slime.
Every time Professor Turley criticizes “advocacy journalism,” he omits the biggest source of it: Fox News. In fact, Turley’s own style of journalism is advocacy journalism with a strong right-leaning bias. The outrage-driven content and constant criticism of the left, which always mirrors the Fox News narrative, are classic examples of advocacy journalism.
I don’t know if the Professor is deliberately naive or simply unaware of how hypocritical his stance is, but he is engaging in advocacy journalism himself.
Research indicates that Fox engages in agenda-setting by heavily emphasizing specific issues (such as immigration and cultural topics) while often ignoring or framing stories to support a partisan viewpoint. This is exactly what Turley accuses advocacy journalism of being.
Even in his columns, Professor Turley tends to leave out key information that would provide more context and balance, instead pushing a strongly right-leaning narrative aligned with Fox News, effectively making him a paid mouthpiece for Fox. He is very much part of the advocacy journalism he criticizes, which makes him quite hypocritical.
Professor Turley writes a personal blog, free to all readers. You can liken it to a Substack, or an opinion column, except the last feature.
The Washington Post purports to contain straight news as well as opinion columns, sports reporting, advice columns, etc., and requires an investment of over $120 annually (I do subscribe, and to The New York Times as well).
See the difference here?
Actually, I think of Professor Turley as a voice crying out in the wilderness. Just as FOX News is. And that wilderness is the sea of leftist propaganda organizations that have been created over the past half century or so from the disgorge of our overwhelmingly leftist journalism “schools.”
I disagree. Fox news (small n) is pretty well balanced. Yeah, some of their commentator’s are over the top, but almost all commentator’s, both left and right are. The Post,The Times, Associated Press etc can find something negative to say about Trump and Republicans in almost any article that they publish while fawning over any and all of the latest Progressive boogyman in the same article. It’s tiresome. If you’re really into balanced commentator’s, read Turley, National Review, The Dispatch, The Hill etc. Then you can make up your own mind about a subject.
Dustoff: I agree with your first two sentences, but not the third. WAPO is, presumably, a for-profit endeavor. Bezos has shown himself to be very good at innovation (Amazon) and making a profit (measured in billions). Could he subsidize WAPO? Without a doubt. Does he want to subsidize it? Clearly not. He did not become a multibillionaire by subsidizing sinking ships. If he can return WAPO to honesty and profitability, readership will increase in quality and quantity. Whatever the goals of WAPO employees, the owner’s goals are the only ones that count.
Whatever the goals of WAPO employees, the owner’s goals are the only ones that count.
You’re right Suze. At the end of the day, the Washington Post is a private enterprise. Whatever the views or aspirations of the staff, the only goals that ultimately matter are those of the owner. He can try to turn it around, subsidize it, or sell it. That’s not ideology. That’s ownership.
Bezos didn’t get rich by pissing away his money.
“No different with the NY slime.”
No different except possibly in the outcome. If the Slime was in on the verge of going under, I’d bet you good money that DamnedNanny would find a way to subsidize it and make it literally, as well as figuratively, the “Pravda of NYC”.
Back in 2009, they almost did that in Congress. When the next Depression happens, you can bet the Democrats will introduce bills to subsidize newz orgs again.