Rachel Abrams: From the New York Times, I'm Rachel

Abrams. This is the Daily. [music]

When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington

Post more than a decade ago, journalists

inside and [music] outside of the

newsroom were cautiously optimistic.

Maybe he could revitalize one [music] of

America's most storied news

organizations.

Brutal blow to one of journalism's most

legendary brands. The Washington Post is

laying [music] off onethird of its staff

across all departments.

Those hopes though were dashed on

Wednesday when the paper laid off more

[music] than a third of its newsroom,

affecting nearly every section of the

paper.

The [music] newspaper's books department

will close, its post reports, podcast

suspended,

its entire sports department, and most

of its overseas journalists.

Today, I talked to my colleague Eric

Wemple [music] about what went wrong and

what comes next.

[music]

It's Thursday, February 5th.

Eric Wemple: Thank you. Thank you for having me. A

lot of people listening to our show

today probably have some kind of

awareness that people have been talking

in really apocalyptic terms about the

state of affairs at the Washington

Post and specifically the layoffs

that happened on Wednesday which were

described by many people as frankly a

bloodbath.

And you Eric you are not only a media

reporter at the New York Times but you

also were a media columnist at the

Washington Post and this is why we

wanted to talk to you today because of

this unique vantage point that you have.

So, just to start, tell us what we know

about these cuts.

Rachel Abrams: So, what do we know at this point at about

3:50 in the afternoon on Wednesday about

who was laid off?

Eric Wemple: So, this is an extremely grim outcome at

the Washington Post. A dark day, as many

people have been saying. We knew the

layoffs were coming, but they hit and

they hit with a tremendous amount of

force. And that analysis doesn't need to

extend that much further than just

saying that 300 people who practice

journalism for the benefit of American

civic life have lost their jobs, maybe

lost their careers and their livelihood

at least for some time. So it doesn't

really have to go beyond that analysis.

But there is another dimension to it

which is that this is the Washington

Post and the Washington Post right now

is playing an enormously important role

in covering an administration for whom

no headcount is really sufficient. So

that's what I would say about the

enormity of these events.

What do we know at this point at about

3:50 in the afternoon on Wednesday about

who was laid off?

Well, we know that the cuts took about

300 positions out of the newsroom and

this was a newsroom that was at about

800 in terms of its headcount. It had

crested up above,00 several years ago I

think and maybe in 2021 around then and

since then it has been an exercise in

retrenchment.

The layoffs landed disproportionately on

the metro desk, the sports desk and the

international coverage. Those are three

areas that have been rumored to be hit

in recent weeks, recent months. And

indeed, that's what happened.

Rachel Abrams: It feels like there are many different

things happening at once at the

Washington Post. You've got a tough

business, you've got a billionaire

owner, you've got an entire industry

struggling to figure out how to make it

in the age of the internet and social

media. So, which of these narratives

helps explain why a third of the

newsroom was laid off on Wednesday?

Eric Wemple: The question of what's happening to the Post

is a little bit layered. Number one, the

Washington Post is a legacy regional

newspaper and as a legacy regional

newspaper,

it has business model problems, very

clear ones that relate to the drying up

of revenue streams and that's across the

industry. Add on to that that Jeff Bezos

in the past couple of years has made

some mists that have led to the

desertion of subscribers and business

model problems for the Washington

Post that really don't come with the standard

issue crisis that we've seen over the

past few decades. So that's how I'd put

it. And I think that that's one of the

reasons why this is such a big story.

Rachel Abrams: I want to rewind a little bit and go

back to 2013, the year that Jeff Bezos

purchased the post. And at the time,

people both inside and I think outside

journalism were extremely optimistic

that this guy was going to basically

ride in on a white horse and infuse the

place with cash and help it realize its

ambitions. So, bring us back to that

moment and tell us kind of how things

evolved from there.

Eric Wemple: So when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington

Post, he was buying essentially the same

sort of paper that we had seen fail in a

lot of markets in the United States,

which is to say a struggling paper, a

paper that had lost staff, a paper that

had lost a little bit of vigor, and a

paper that had lost a fair bit of

morale.

I mean, it was still producing very good

journalism, but it was definitely not at

like the top of its game. It was a

newspaper in need of investment,

especially since the demands of the time

were to figure out new ways of putting

reporting and content online, which was

frankly a very expensive thing to do,

right?

So Jeff Bezos buys the Washington

Post for $250 million basically in the summer

fall of 2013. And Bezos had this idea

that this was a a lofty a goal certainly

a a worthwhile pursuit to turn this

sort of distressed property with a lot of

social value, a lot of civic value, turn

it around, make it profitable. the

newspaper industry needs new approaches

and uh you know Jeff Bezos may be the

guy to to do that. We hope so at the

Washington Post

and there were a lot of eager people who

are really happy and excited to be

working with him and I think that that

was a powerful combination um for a new

owner.

[music]

Rachel Abrams: I remember reading a quote from Jeff

Bezos at some point that said something

to the effect of when he was old one of

the things he'd be proudest of as part

of his legacy was the Washington

Post and and helping to turn that place

around. And I remember reading that and

I remember the sense of optimism

that you are describing. But I also remember,

Eric, that there were some concerns

about editorial independence, concerns

about what does it mean for a person

that rich, that influential, who has

that many different business interests

to come in and take control of a

newspaper.

Eric Wemple: There were absolutely concerns about

editorial independence. And I mean,

anytime you have a news organization

owned by a businessman of such

proportions, you're going to have

really, really legitimate conflict of

interest concerns. But Bezos from the

very beginning u made it clear to news

leaders at the Washington Post that he

would not interfere in the coverage and

essentially said with respect to Amazon

and other interests of his other

companies and so on and so forth

whatever he would do have at it. Cover

it the way you would any other company.

He said all the right things to a group

of journalists.

Rachel Abrams: >> So what did he do next?

Eric Wemple: >> So next after buying the place he

invested in the place. He invested in

the politics coverage. He invested in

the international coverage. He invested

in the technology. The Post website was

sort of creaky. It would take a long

time to load. So, the Washington

Post became more of a news technology

company and less of this uh sort of old

fogy sort of readout where, you know,

the technology didn't work too well and it

was just let's see how many how many

pop-up ads do I have to fight off before

he get my content and so on and so

forth. So Bezos really he brought

the newspaper ahead leaps and bounds with

those investments.

Rachel Abrams: >> He made it user friendly. He made it

much more user friendly. Am I making

this up, Eric? Cuz I feel like I

remember around the time you're

describing suddenly seeing a lot more

articles that seemed like general

interest on social media. I would see

things pop up on Instagram and things

that seemed like very userfriendly, very

general interest. I remember having the

impression that they they seem to like

really be broadening their reach in like

a technologically savvy way.

Eric Wemple: >> Yes. I mean under Bezos uh the post

invested more in his audience teams and

how to reach uh people. You know the the

cliche that now is you need to reach

your audience where it lies or where

where it sits or where it is all that

sort of lingo. That was reality at the

post and it was much needed.

Rachel Abrams: >> And what about Bezos's promise

of staying out of the news coverage? Well,

I mean, there were many indications

that he was indeed staying out of the

coverage as he had promised to. The the

Washington Post did tremendous coverage

of Amazon. It had its own reporter

on the company and a lot of people

were were looking for signs that conflict

of interest was coming to roost at the

Washington Post and they didn't come up

with much.

Eric Wemple: >> And not only did they, you know, seem

independent, but they were really really

knocking it out of the park. During this

period, the Post was doing an

extraordinary amount of excellent

journalism before Donald Trump's

election, after it, throughout that

term. The Post was investigating him

as a candidate, as a president, along with

other major outlets in a way that I

believe was almost unprecedented in

American politics. They were delivering

scoops about his philanthropic

organizations, about his business

operations, and then into his

administration first year. And if you

want to know how badly that offended

Mr. Trump, you can just look at the

lawsuit that he filed against the Pulitzer

board a few years back, right?

And so this was an era of tremendous,

tremendous journalistic effort and

output.

Rachel Abrams: >> They were breaking things that were

influencing the news.

Eric Wemple: >> Yes, absolutely. And during those

years too, famously the Washington

Post came up with a new motto,

democracy dies in darkness.

I remember

I think those years represented Bezos's

promise fulfilled an era of tremendous

success.

Rachel Abrams: >> So during this period of what sounds

like a reinvigorated newsroom,

how was it doing on the business side?

Was it making money? Was there a

strategy?

Eric Wemple: >> Yes. I mean, part of the strategy, of

course, was to ride the Trump

bump. Let's be honest about that. But

they did a lot of things to improve

the product. They were bringing on

more subscribers month after month. And

through those initial Trump years,

the post was allegedly profitable. But

that it fell off a cliff sort of in

the beginning of the Biden administration

2122 when digital advertising sort of

dried up and audience dried up. It

was not as interesting a time uh

from the viewpoint of a news consumer.

There weren't major uh stories coming

out of the White House hour after

hour on a Saturday morning.

So that was less news

and less crisis and fewer eyeballs,

fewer clicks. That had a big impact

on the posts business and there was

also a slump in digital advertising to

boot. So what you have then is that

the Washington Post started losing a

lot of money year after year up to

like a hundred million dollars. And

the eerie sort of feeling you got

looking at this is that those

systemic problems with the newspaper

relating to digital advertising

subscribers, those problems continued

to haunt the Washington Post ledger.

Rachel Abrams: >> Right. What you're saying is essentially

that the bump that the Washington

Post got in the years after Trump was

elected was not a response to a new

strategy of a new business model. It

was a response to Trump. And so

therefore, the Trump bump, this

enormous influx of readers right after

the election in 2016, kind of

papered over an intractable problem

that was much more intractable than

perhaps anybody had anticipated.

Eric Wemple: >> Yes, indeed. That is essentially

what we've learned kind of the hard way

that the post emerged from these years

of profitability and then this went a

little bit sideways, that went a little

bit sideways, the audience wasn't fully

there, which means that the business

model isn't really robust. It can't

handle anything less than optimal

circumstances.

So, the Washington Post's business

model problems were such that even if

you had a management team that was

making reasonably smart and logical

decisions, the paper would still be

struggling.

But starting in 2024,

Jeff Bezos took a number of steps

that turned a problem into a genuine

crisis.

Rachel Abrams: >> We'll be right back.

So, Eric, before the break, you

mentioned that the post in 2024 hit

the state of crisis. I think I know

what you're talking about, but tell us

what happened.

Eric Wemple: >> Yes. So, what happened in 2024 was

really significant.

The election proceeded with respect to

our coverage just as it always had.

[snorts] The news side was doing

its articles. The editorial side was

doing its editorials and its op-eds

and things were bumping along just

[music] fine.

Now, as usually happened, sometime in

late summer, early fall, the Washington

Post editorial board would begin

drafting and publish an endorsement

of one of the candidates in the

presidential race. Mhm.

And this [music] was something

that readers had come to expect. But

as we inched closer and closer to

the election, there was no editorial

coming forth from the Washington

Post.

Nothing was published.

Nothing was published. Even though

people on the editorial board were

working on one and indeed had

mustered a draft endorsement in favor

of uh Democratic candidate Kala

Harris.

[snorts]

But 11 days before the election, Will

Lewis, the publisher, announced that

there would be a new policy. And that

policy was to not publish endorsements

at all in this race and in future

races. It was articulated as a policy

shift and not as some sort of political

decision.

Rachel Abrams: >> Yeah. Explain the reaction to that a

little bit.

Eric Wemple: >> It was epic. People went berserk on

the Washington Post. You mean people

were writing in expressing their displeasure?

Our digital messaging platforms were uh

a flame. They were very busy

and people answered immediately with

their money and they they canceled

their subscriptions. NPR reported that

there were in excess of 250,000

cancellations of subscriptions against a

subscriber base that was about 2.5

million at the time.

[music]

Rachel Abrams: >> And Eric, why do people have that

kind of reaction given the fact that an

owner of a newspaper traditionally has

the right to influence the editorial

page?

Eric Wemple: >> Yes, that's traditionally the

prerogative of owners and it's been

cemented for decades in American

newspapering. But what was particularly

problematic here was not necessarily

that Bezos had instituted a new policy

per se. The issue was when it happened

and what had preceded it. When it

happened was 11 days before the election

and what preceded it was that the

Washington Post had a draft endorsement

for Kla Harris in the hopper ready

to go. So many people just did

the shorthand and say Jeff Bezos

killed the Kla Harris editorial. Now

the Washington Post was statement

was written to kind of prevent

that impression from taking hold but

it wasn't very effective in doing

that

and not insignificant portion of

subscribers canled it seemed because of

this decision to pull the endorsement.

Eric Wemple: >> There was no uncertainty about the cause

and effect here. None. This drop

happened because of this decision and

people at the post were livid about

it and they were also insistent

we should not be held liable for

this particular loss. This [snorts] one's

on management. They should take

the consequences of this awful

decision and not force it on us via

cutbacks, layoffs, buyouts, whatever. I

remember this moment as really the

first clearest example of something

happening that people had worried would

happen when Bezos bought the paper,

which is that he would make a

decision that at least seemed like

it was caving to power. In this

case, giving what seemed like a

gift to then candidate Trump.

Rachel Abrams: >> Right. Well, you have a lot of company

in reaching that conclusion is all I

would say there. And of course, that

wasn't the end of it. Just months later

in February of 2025, Bezos just out

of nowhere declared a pivot in the

Washington Post opinion sections

ideological outlook towards personal

liberties and free markets. And that

came out of the blue and again people

reached the conclusion that this was

a way of pivoting the opinion offerings

in favor of Donald Trump and the

GOP. And then I would say that

there was a a dismay that deepened

over the course of several months. I

think that there started to be a

growing dissatisfaction with leadership

and a number of people took a

buyout to leave. Other people

just chose to leave,

including you, right?

Eric Wemple: >> Including me. That was uh my wife

who slapped me and said, "Wake up,

bucko." Pretty much because I was sort

of in a state of denial about

where everything was headed. M

I think a lot of us had that

same sort of feeling that we had

been at this institution for so long.

It had been so steady, it had been

so reliable that we could not believe

that the ground was shifting underneath

our feet. But there is and was a

sentiment there that things were just

not very well managed and very

well thought through. And that had

never been the case before. And that

was I think the factor that drove

a lot of departures and drove a

lot of dissatisfaction.

Rachel Abrams: >> It feels worth noting that none of what

we are talking about is happening in a

vacuum. The layoffs in particular that

have happened this week. Jeff Bezos

just paid $75 million to a company

controlled by Melania Trump, the first

lady, for a documentary.

It's an exorbitant amount of money. It's

caused a lot of people to say

that this is nothing short of a

transparent attempt to cozy up to the

administration. Amazon is also one

of the top donors to the Eastwing

Ballroom project the president has

pursued. And all of this is happening

at a time of unprecedented attacks

on the press, including at the

Washington Post, where a journalist

recently had her home searched by

the FBI. And so I think a

lot of people are probably listening

to this and have heard all of

this context and and are thinking

about all the other things going on

right now in the world and in

the world of journalism and

they're wondering do these cuts that

we are talking about fit into that

backdrop in any way.

Eric Wemple: >> I am going to say if you are going

to cut a newsroom to please Donald

Trump in any way, I think that those

cuts would have been different. In other

words, they would have gone first

after the investigative capacity, the

politics desk, the national security

desk of the Washington Post.

Those desks have done the greatest

damage over the years to President

Trump.

Rachel Abrams: >> And the desks that you just

outlined, to be clear, those are

remaining intact.

Eric Wemple: >> Well, those are remaining more intact

than the ones that they targeted.

management has said that the cuts

affect pretty much all areas of the

newsroom, but the most directly

affected. The most proportionately

deep cuts fell on the metro

sports and the international

staffs. So I don't think that that

particular read is operative here. The

broader critique at play, I think,

is just that Bezos is gutting the

newsroom that he once propped up

and that he once invested in and

that he expanded. So,

we're basically seeing a clawback

of the investment that he put into

the newsroom. It's basically like a

boomerang. So, that is kind of a

cataclysm at the Washington

Post. That is a major major

media story.

Why double down on the desks that

you mentioned, national security,

politics, investigations? Why are those

desks the ones that he and the

rest of the leadership are banking

on?

Eric Wemple: >> Well, the explanation is that they

have found through looking at the

data, through looking at the analytics,

the areas that readers want and

they've de-emphasized the ones that

readers don't want. Mhm.

We don't have all their analytics,

but that's the rationale that they

looked at the analytics, they decided

that this was the way to go and

that this was the route to saving

the institution.

Rachel Abrams: >> Saving by shrinking the institution,

though.

Eric Wemple: >> Yes,

I can understand why that might make

sense to double down on what you

believe to be your core product. But I

want to read you something that Jeff

Bezos said when he bought the paper.

I don't think you can keep shrinking

the business. You can be profitable

and shrinking and that's a survival

strategy, but it ultimately leads

to irrelevance at best and at

worst it leads to extinction. So

how does that square if it squares

at all with the idea of doubling

down on just those few core

areas?

Eric Wemple: >> Well, I do think that there is some

logic there and that is that the post

has had a tremendous run in these

areas. The problem is that they are

cutting all kinds of stuff that people

have enjoyed in the past. And whenever

a newspaper cuts,

there is a desertion.

And that desertion basically lowers

their revenue. It cuts into their

revenue because subscribers leave.

Digital advertisers don't see as much

content they want to be adjacent to. And

so you get into sort of a spiral

which people in the industry call

a death spiral where you cut the

product,

people desert the paper, revenues

go down, you cut more, people

desert, you cut more and and

and it's a self-reinforcing cycle

and it's misery.

And there is no guarantee whatsoever

that the post is not descending

into one of those spirals.

Mhm.

Because there is an open question

as to whether doubling down on

these areas is going to float the

business model. There is just no

guarantee that it will.

Rachel Abrams: >> I want to read you one more thing,

Eric, and this is a quote from Marty

Baron's statement on Wednesday. Marty

Baron, former executive editor of the

Washington Post, and his statement

says,

"The Washington Post's ambitions

will be sharply diminished. Its talented

and brave staff will be further

depleted, and the public will be

denied the ground level fact-based

reporting in our communities and

around the world that is needed

more than ever. Looking at all

the cuts that you've outlined,

looking at the reaction from people

both inside and outside the post,

talking about this in, as I mentioned,

apocalyptic terms, what do you think

we can say about the Post's ability

to do the kind of journalism we

have come to expect and rely

on from this paper?

Eric Wemple: >> Well, I would say we should never

sell short

the abilities of the journalists

that are there.

When a story emerges, they will get

on it and they will continue

investigating. They will continue breaking

news. They will continue kicking ass

in journalism.

So, people [music] will continue. I

will continue to subscribe to the

Washington Post as I have for

decades. Nothing will make me ever

stop my subscription to the Washington

Post. I get it in print. I

read it every day. I've read it

through this tumult too. Every day

I find plenty to read in the

Washington Post. It will not stop

producing really good journalism.

[music] What will happen is, we

will never see the stuff that

they just don't have the manpower

to produce. So this becomes

something that is utterly ineffable,

utterly invisible and utterly

impossible to quantify.

That there'll be things going on

in the world that the Washington

Post does not have the resources

or the eyes to see through.

[music]

[music]

Rachel Abrams: >> Eric Wimple, thank you so much

for joining us.

Eric Wemple: >> Well, thank you for having me.

Rachel Abrams: >> We'll be [music] right back.

Here's

what else you need to know today.

We currently have an unprecedented

number of counties communicating with

us now [music]

and allowing ICE to take custody

of illegal aliens before they hit

the streets. Unprecedented

cooperation. [music] On Wednesday,

the president's borders are Tom

Holman, said the government would

immediately withdraw 700 officers

from Minneapolis [music] after local

officials agreed to increase their

cooperation with federal immigration

agents. The cooperation,

Hman said, involves local officials

allowing ICE agents [music] to take

custody of undocumented immigrants

before they are released from jail.

More officers taking custody of

criminal aliens directly from the

jails means less officers on the

street doing criminal operations.

And the Supreme Court has cleared

the way [music] for California to use

a new congressional map explicitly

designed to help Democrats in this

fall's midterm elections.

The justices [music] rejected an

emergency request by the California

Republican Party to block the

map.

Democrats [music] redrrew the state's

congressional districts last year to

counter a similar effort undertaken

by Republicans [music] at President

Trump's behest in states like

Texas.

Today's [music] episode was produced

by Carlos Prio, Shannon Lynn, and

Eric Krupkkey. It was edited by

Devin Taylor and Liz O Balin.

Contains music by Dan Powell, Sophia

[music] Lanman, Diane Wong, and

Rowan Nemisto. And was

engineered by Chris Wood.

[music]

That's it [music] for the daily. I'm

Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.