Bezos’ Gutting of The Washington Post is Bad Business
It’s also morally reprehensible, cowardly, and un-democratic.
In 2017, during the first year of Trump 1.0, the Washington Post adopted a new slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Oh, how times have changed. Although the premise of the slogan still rings true, the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has proven himself an unfit steward for providing a light that strengthens our democracy.
The recent round of layoffs at the Post are part of a continuing trend for the paper. Its staff has been steadily shrinking for years as veteran journalists have taken buyouts and departed for other opportunities. One cartoonist left the Post after saying her editors killed a cartoon that depicted Bezos and other billionaires showing deference to Trump.
When influential billionaires like Bezos cave to Trump, who pays the price? In the case of his gutting the staff of the Post, it’s the hard-working journalists who speak truth to power. It’s also us, the American people, who rely on unbiased, unafraid journalists to hold our elected officials accountable.
During the first Trump presidency, the Post consistently provided in-depth, principled coverage of the White House. See, for example, the Post’s efforts to fact check 100 days of Trump claims in 2017. It turned out, then, that covering the administration aggressively was good for business. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of digital subscribers to the Post tripled. Back then, the Post could continue to serve as a check on government power while remaining financially afloat.
But then, in 2024, Bezos steered the Post in an alternative direction. He killed the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, and he instructed the newspaper’s opinions section to focus exclusively on “personal liberties and free markets.” Bezos’s actions outside of the newsroom, like donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and attending the inauguration, have fueled the perception that a friendlier relationship with the administration is undermining the Post’s coverage of Trump.
What is the result? The Post’s readership has declined, and the paper seems to be charting a path towards irrelevance. The graph below, courtesy of Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, illustrates the trend. Compared to stories from the New York Times, articles from the Washington Post have been shared significantly less during Trump 2.0.
The version of Jeff Bezos that was willing to use his influence at the Post and urge the paper to speak out against the Trump Administration is long gone. The recent layoffs, as well as the decline in the Post’s relevance as evidenced in the graph above, suggest Bezos’s unwillingness to cover Trump critically is actually bad for business.
More importantly, it’s bad for democracy. Journalists provide an essential function in our democracy because they uncover the truth and hold our government accountable. That’s why the Founding Fathers enshrined the freedom of the press as a bedrock principle in the First Amendment. What’s more, the Washington Post has a long, storied history of upholding our democracy. It was Post reporters who famously broke the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.
Now, Bezos is hollowing out the newsroom, undermining the Post’s ability to break critical stories going forward, and ensuring that the Post’s future reporting is viewed—fairly or unfairly—as untrustworthy. None of that is the fault of the paper’s newsroom staff; it’s all the fault of the guy at the top.
Days before the start of Trump 2.0, the Post announced that it would change its slogan to something a little less gloomy: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” Is that all the Post can offer now? An Orwellian story of a democracy dying in darkness?
Perhaps the Post is beyond redemption, but that doesn’t mean our democracy is beyond repair. We can still choose to support real journalism, and the real journalists who are hurt by Bezos’ bending of the knee. Unlike billionaires who choose to cower and go along with this authoritarian administration, the rest of us can still choose to be brave, to speak out, to fight back.
Home of the Brave is an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness.
CBS News and CNN soon to be getting the WaPo treatment by their oligarch owners. It is deeply disturbing and shameful.
The only honorable thing left for Bezos would be to sell the Post for a buck to the WaPo staff, so that they can continue to uphold the Post's standards, and he would be free from having to kiss Trump's ass. A win for both sides, and pocket change for him—plus he can get a huge tax write-off for it. If he needs it.