The First Street Journal has reported, several times, on The Washington Post and its financial losses. We even suggested, perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, how to save the newspaper. This time, it’s The Wall Street Journal’s turn!
The Washington Post Is Limping Into Trump’s Second Term
Financial struggles, concerns over editorial strategy rattle staffers at Jeff Bezos-owned publication
By Alexandra Bruell | Friday, January 10, 2024 | 11:52 AM EST
Donald Trump’s return to the White House should be a moment for the Washington Post to shine. The news outlet has a rich history of hard-nosed political reporting, and its coverage of Trump’s first term led to a huge jump in readership.
But as the president-elect’s second term approaches, the Post is mired in financial challenges and internal drama.
Subscription and ad-revenue shortfalls are taking a toll on the business, which lost around $100 million last year, and leaders are struggling to convince staff that they have a clear editorial vision and continuing commitment to hard-hitting journalism, according to more than a dozen people close to the newsroom. Rivals have poached many top Post journalists in recent weeks, and are in talks with others.
It is a critical moment for an institution that has prided itself on holding the powerful to account, from Watergate to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The Post, like its rivals in news publishing, is contending with a decline in public trust of traditional media and competition from new-media formats such as podcasts and social media.
What reporter Alexandra Bruell failed to mention is why there has been a “decline in public trust of traditional media,” something which ought to be obvious. Yes, there have been outside attacks on the credibility of the credentialed media, but those attacks have been successful because, in large part, they were true. We noted how the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer touted “the adversarial role the press plays in a healthy democracy,” but pointed out that the press did not play much of an adversarial role during the Biden Administration. The traditional media were almost fawning in their coverage of President Biden and his family and staff, and completely ignored the President’s gradual but nevertheless obvious mental decline, right up until the June 27th debate exposed it to the American people in a way which could no longer be concealed.
We evil reich-wing bloggers knew about it all along, knew even before the 2020 election due to the campaign continually shutting down campaigning early in the day, but, of course, we were the #FakeNews, not the credentialed media.
The Wall Street Journal itself reported on how Mr Biden’s staff tried so very diligently to shield the President and his declining status from everyone . . . on December 19th, well after the election. We pointed out that the Journal’s Peggy Noonan added to it, trying to slough blame off of the media for not reporting on it onto the President’s staffers. CNN’s Chris Cillizza at least acknowledged that he should have pushed harder to investigate the stories, which is, at the very least, an acknowledgement that he knew about Mr Biden’s dementia to some extent. He knew, and they all knew, but no one with a credentialed media byline — Robert Stacy McCain calls them “Democrats with bylines” — told the truth, or even investigated, because they were all in the bag for Mr Biden against the evil, authoritarian, fascist, ‘literally Hitler’ Donald Trump.
Once Mr Biden was forced out voluntarily withdrew from the campaign, and the Democrats anointed Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff their standard-bearer, all of the legacy media fell into lockstep — or is that goosestep? — for her. That was when owner Jeff Bezos made his huge misstep: he spiked an endorsement of Mrs Emhoff by the Post, a move which led more than a quarter million subscribers to drop their subscriptions. An endorsement wouldn’t have mattered, because everyone expected it, but the pulling of it generated a firestorm among the newspaper’s primarily liberal subscribers.
Owner Jeff Bezos envisions significant changes. One of his goals is to introduce viewpoints that resonate with a much larger, and more ideologically diverse, swath of America, according to people familiar with the matter. “Increasingly we talk only to a certain elite,” he wrote in an op-ed before the November election.
Really? Will that bring back the 250,000 plus subscribers the newspaper lost?
Some staffers describe friction between Chief Executive William Lewis and the newsroom, and he hasn’t addressed the newsroom since a contentious town hall in June. Lewis, who was previously CEO of the Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, has expressed frustration to people within and outside the Post that the newsroom isn’t open to the urgent changes needed to put the paper on stronger financial footing.
A spokeswoman said Lewis has “tremendous respect and appreciation for his colleagues at the Washington Post.”
The mood for those still at the Post has been further dampened by a mandate to return to the office five days a week, effective later this year.
Oh, the poor babies! Having to actually go to work! Heaven forfend!
Guess what? The people the editors and businessmen of the Post want to bring into the fold, to start clicking on Post articles and perhaps even shelling out their hard-earned money for a subscription are people who have to actually go to work, go to work every day of the work week, and some on weekends as well. Having the attitude that they should get days in their jammies . . . or less . . . is a real, cultural disconnect from the people who are paying good money to read their reports.