The sad decline of The Washington Post

Some newspapers are more special than others and the Washington Post, whose journalists uncovered the full extent of the Watergate cover-up and helped bring down a president, is one of those.

That is why the news that it’s to shed a third of its workforce has sent shockwaves around the industry.

Not because journalists losing their jobs is anything new – sadly, thousands of newspapers have gone to the wall over the last twenty years – but because it’s the Post.

Blame is being laid squarely at the door of owner Jeff Bezos, a man prepared to spend a reported $75m on a by-all-accounts lamentable film about First Lady Melania Trump, but is prepared to look the other way when the Post is in trouble.

David Remnick wrote in The New Yorker: “Early in his proprietorship, Bezos endorsed a new motto for the paper: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It turns out that one of democracy’s most celebrated media institutions can be strangled in broad daylight."

NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss said: “It’s disgusting that one of the richest men in the world is more invested in purchasing favour with the president of the United States than in investing in journalists who are the watchdogs of democracy.”

When Bezos bought the paper in 2013, the early signs were encouraging. He seemed to take a laissez-faire approach to owning the paper and during President Trump’s first term, the paper was highly critical – the Post’s fact checking team documented 30,573 false or misleading claims. In his second term, the paper stopped counting.

Everything changed once Bezos realized that his ownership of an independently minded and outspoken Post was likely to see him miss out on multi-billion dollar government contracts for other parts of his business. The Post had become a liability.

The turning point appears to have been Bezos’s spiking of an election eve endorsement of Kamala Harris by the paper. That decision reportedly cost the paper 250,000 subscribers and it’s been downhill ever since.

What is needed is for Bezos to sell the paper, but who would buy it? And would Trump look favourably on Bezos offloading the paper which might become critical again under new ownership.

It’s likely therefore that Bezos will retain ownership, to placate the president, while depriving it of the resources and editorial independence it needs.

A once proud newspaper trapped in limbo.

(Finally, the January / February issue of InPublishing magazine goes to press this week. To join the free mailing list, register here. Being mailed out with the issue is this year’s Publishing Partners Guide. Don’t miss it…)

James Evelegh

Editor