Just Give the Journalists the Goddamn Money

Looking at you Jeff Bezos!

Nina Westervelt/WWD via Getty Images

As of Monday morning, the Washington Post has a new editor. Or, rather, a bunch of new editors, a whole new weird way of doing things, and the certainty of more turmoil to come.

On Sunday, the paper announced that Sally Buzbee, its editor since 2021, was “stepping down” (aka very obviously got fired). Buzbee’s tenure was far from stellar, but, reading the tea leaves, it seems she was kicked to the curb mostly because she was standing in the way of some big plans from the Post’s new publisher, the dubiously credentialed British media veteran Will Lewis.

We have now learned more about those plans, and, wouldn’t you know, they sound dumb as hell.

The central move is the creation of a “third newsroom” to sit alongside news and opinion, which I guess are now the first and second newsrooms. (Yes, I agree it is stupid.) And what does that third newsroom consist of? Let’s have the Post tell us itself:

This third newsroom will be comprised of service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans – who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed –compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want.

This new organizational structure follows The Washington Post’s recent announcement of its ‘Build It’ plan, which highlights the need to move away from the traditional one-size-fits-all approach and to create news for a broader range of readers and customers. This will focus more on video storytelling, embracing AI to help, and flexible payment methods. The new newsroom division will be operational by the third quarter of this year.

Ah OK. Pivots to video. “Embracing AI.” Social media. Quite sure sure quite yes. It sounds like the usual flailing around that will end in disaster, but since the only evidence I have for that is “the entire history of the news business over the past 15 years,” perhaps I’m jumping the gun.

The backdrop to this is that the Post is losing a lot of money—$77 million over the last year—and keeps shedding staff. Business is business, right? The Post can’t expect its bosses to just keep handing over money indefinitely. They have bills to pay, and shareholders to satisfy, and bank accounts to fuss over, and profits to make. You know, the economy.

Except except, do you know what is also true as of Monday morning? The Post does not have shareholders. It is the personal property of exactly one person, and that person, Jeff Bezos, is worth $194.5 billion, making him richer than all but two of the roughly 8.05 billion people on this planet.

Do you see where I’m going with this? (Also, subscribe to non-billionaire media…hint hint.)