WaPo's AWOL Publisher Abruptly Resigns

 

Days after massive and potentially fatal layoffs at the Washington Post, its publisher Will Lewis resigned.  Hired by tech oligarch and Trump ass kisser Jeff Bezos two years ago, Lewis was tasked to produce changes to the Post's news coverage and editorial policy, as dictated by the shape-shifting owner Bezos.  From NPR:

"The Washington Post Publisher and Chief Executive Will Lewis announced Saturday evening he would depart after just two years at the paper, a tenure marked by controversy and crisis.

Lewis called his time 'two years of transformation' in his resignation note, but it was defined by turbulence rather than a clear path, and it ended with brutal job cuts. The paper's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, will serve as acting CEO.

More than a third of the newsroom was laid off Wednesday after Lewis' promises of radical innovations failed to staunch several years of annual losses in the tens of millions of dollars. At one point, losses hit $100 million, Lewis told staffers in June 2024 during a rocky newsroom all-staff. The session occurred just five months into his time at the Post. Yet it proved to be his final all-staff meeting.

He was effectively AWOL as the paper's scope, ambitions and journalism were radically redefined and constricted. Lewis played no visible role in announcing the layoffs in a mandatory Zoom call for the newsroom on Wednesday. Nor did he publicly address the paper's readers to allay their concerns.

The coup de grâce came just a day later when Lewis was photographed in Northern California walking a red carpet at a Super Bowl event." (our emphasis)

Lewis met the definition of "calling it in" for his absentee management, not bothering to deal with the paper's staff.  Good riddance, but too late for the fired staff.

At this stage, the only way the Post might be salvaged, and even returned to its earlier glory, is to find a buyer(s) that are willing to create a charitable trust for the paper to operate under, much in the way of The Guardian UK is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited.  It's a highly unlikely scenario, but what a great clap back it would be for two billionaire philanthropists like Mackenzie Scott (Bezos' ex) and Melinda Gates (Bill Gates' ex) to buy the Post and establish a charitable trust in perpetuity.  Both are worth just shy of $30 billion. They could solicit more participants who support a free press and democratic values and save a major institution. 

BONUS: The Columbia Review of Journalism suggested last fall that Bezos donate the Post to a charitable trust for a tax write off, not that Bezos pays anything more than minimal taxes, Amazon even less. 

 

Bezos' Washington Post Massacre, By The Numbers

 

Yesterday's massive layoffs at the Washington Post by Trump fart sniffer Jeff Bezos shocked and appalled anyone who remembers the Post as it once was under the Graham family.   The vulgar, sychophant billionaire has now succeeded in his apparent goal of making the country and world a little safer for Trump.  This comes only days after his $75 million bribe bomb movie "Eva Braun Melania" assaulted the theaters.  Here's the massacre, with some context, by the numbers:

Amount Amazon MGM Studios spent on the rights to “Melania” the movie: $40 million.

Amount Amazon MGM spent marketing “Melania:” $35 million.

Reporters laid off while in the middle of a war zone: At least one.

Number of Middle East correspondents and editors fired: All of them.

Amount of sports department remaining: None of it.

Reporters and editors in India and Australia: All laid off.

Books coverage: Gone entirely.

Journalists laid off: More than 300.

Presidential endorsements muzzled: One.

Cost of Jeff Bezos’ yacht: $500 million.

Median salary of a Washington Post employee in the Post’s Newspaper Guild: $99,904.

Estimated cost of Lauren Sanchez’s wedding dress: $300,000.

Jeff Bezos’ net worth: $245 billion.

Words Bezos and Washington Post publisher Will Lewis have devoted to addressing the cuts: 0.

Last reported annual losses of the Post: $100 million.

Number of years of losses Bezos could reportedly absorb with what he makes in a single week: Five.

This gutless, amoral billionaire -- who has major business interests dependent upon the corrupt Trump regime -- sacrificed what was once a jewel of American journalism to his greed and lust for power. 

Here's a reminder, across the American media horizon, of some of the millionaires/billionaires with Trump ties or sympathies who own or control ... 

-- Meta / Facebook / Instagram/ What's App/ Threads, etc. (Mark Zuckerberg);

-- X (Elon Musk);

-- Fox "News" Corp. / Wall Street Journal / New York Post (Rupert Murdoch family);

-- CBS (David Ellison);

-- Los Angeles Times (Patrick Soon-Shiong);

-- Minnesota Star Tribune (Glen Taylor);

-- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Richard Mellon Scaife);

-- Las Vegas Review-Journal (Adelson family);

-- Baltimore Sun / Sinclair Broadcast Group (David D. Smith)

-- One America News (Robert Herring, Sr.);

-- Newsmax (Christopher Ruddy);

-- Salem Media Group (Stuart Epperson);

-- Nexstar Media Group (Perry Sook) ...

... and so on, but not including much of "new media" companies and outlets that occupy so much of the landscape today.  We're still awaiting the outcome of the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, and is being pursued in a hostile takeover by the same David Ellison who bought (with his daddy Larry's money) CBS ("SeeBS") and turned it into another Trump-friendly property.

But Bezos.  Bezos' ambitious, heedless, greedy little fingers have torn down what was once a respected world-class newspaper and a First Amendment check on the powerful.  Of  all the monsters populating our country in these awful times, he occupies a special place.

BONUS:  Former Post editor Marty Baron said,

“Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”  

It's especially  ugly when you see the foreign and domestic bureaus that have been eliminated, including the one in California that covered tech accountability (including Bezos').

Good times.