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Why Jeff Bezos is sinking the Washington Post

2026-02-05 22:57:34Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The Washington Post building

Another major blow for the Washington Post. The newspaper's owner, Jeff Bezos, has approved a drastic staff reduction: about 30% of the employees will be laid off, including about 300 journalists, or a third of the editorial staff. The decision comes as part of a new restructuring, in the face of growing financial losses of the historic American newspaper.

Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the fourth richest man in the world with a fortune of around $260 billion, bought the Washington Post in 2013 and was hailed as its savior at the time. After an initial phase of development, the strategy followed in the face of the media crisis has been mainly one of cuts, just like in many other media outlets.

Financial results, however, have not improved the situation. In 2023, the newspaper recorded a loss of $ 77 million, which brought the first wave of layoffs. In 2024, Bezos declared that he would “save the newspaper for the second time”: 100 journalists were laid off and the Sunday magazine was closed. But losses increased further, reaching about $ 100 million.

The latest intervention has been described as very serious. Former journalist Ashley Parker described it in The Atlantic as “a murder,” while former director Marty Baron called it “one of the darkest days of one of the largest journalistic organizations in the world.” The editorial staff will be reduced from about 800 to 500 journalists.

The cuts affect all sectors, but most strongly sports and books, sections that will be completely closed. There is also a significant reduction in local chronicles, which had been reduced even before, as well as in the foreign editorial office, with the departure of many correspondents from the Middle East, India and, according to sources, even Ukraine.

On the most difficult day for the newspaper, CEO William Lewis, appointed by Bezos two years ago to reorganize its finances, did not appear publicly. Nor did the newspaper's director, Matt Murray, face the editorial board directly, but communicated the decision to reporters via a video in the early hours of the morning.

In his message, Murray called the decision "painful, but necessary for the newspaper's survival," adding criticism of the staff, whom he accused of being disconnected from current reality and of following an editorial line that speaks only to one political wing, the left.

Inside the newsroom, however, many believe the cuts are not just a matter of cost-cutting. Among those leaving are journalists who covered Amazon, Bezos' own company, as well as sensitive topics such as race. This has fueled suspicions that some of the departures are in fact editorial purges.

This turnaround began shortly before the 2024 presidential election, when Bezos stopped the newspaper from giving its usual endorsement to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. After this decision, about 200,000 readers canceled their subscriptions. A fact that makes the justification that the financial problems are related to the lack of conservative readers due to a leftist editorial line questionable.

Critics say there may be a desire to turn the Washington Post into a newspaper less critical of Donald Trump, or even closer to him. But the idea that this strategy will bring in more readers seems tenuous, especially in Washington, where Trump has received only 6% of the vote. A paradox for the newspaper that once exposed the Watergate scandal and built its reputation on rigorous fact-checking.

 

 


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