The Washington Post is facing a scale of collapse perhaps never before seen in American journalism.
In 2021, the newspaper had reached 22.5 million digital users. By mid-2024, however, that had fallen to just 3 million. Twenty million daily viewers were simply gone. This amounts to more than a sevenfold loss over a period of just three years. The paper is also bleeding its top talent, including dozens of top writers. On top of this, the Post lost $100 million last year alone.
There are a number of reasons for the precipitous decline, but perhaps none are more impactful than the toxic environment that has festered inside the Post’s headquarters. If ever there were a place more on edge with woke grievance, you’d be hard-pressed to find it.
The environment began to degrade even before 2020 when racial grievance was fueled across the country by the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2019, one Post journalist, Wesley Lowery, seemingly accused his white colleagues of being incapable of recognizing racism, writing on Twitter: “Racism often manifests as subtext and implication. Black & brown ears can hear the racism clearly while our white colleagues engage in fruitless, if earnest, pedantic games.”
After then-Executive Editor Marty Baron criticized Lowery for his social media presence, Lowery responded by publishing a dramatic five-page memo, saying in part that the “public championing of media diversity” now “appears to increasingly run afoul of how The Post expects its reporters to conduct themselves.”
Then, at a “tense” town hall meeting in 2020, Baron apologized for not addressing “the particular and severe burden felt by black employees,” especially those who were participating in coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests. But it was not enough — nor would it ever be. The Washington Post’s union responded to that apology by writing in an email to staffers: “Most striking of all was that the four voices the company chose to elevate in this moment belonged exclusively to white people.” The environment was evidently untenable for Baron, who retired months later.
Then there was the 2022 kerfuffle over a joke, “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual,” retweeted by then-reporter Dave Weigel. Fellow staffer Felicia Somnez melted down in response. Somnez was already a problem for the paper; she was suing her employer for its decision not to allow her to cover sexual misconduct stories because of her advocacy for sexual assault survivors. Somnez sent off a tweetstorm criticizing various colleagues for their response to the Dave Weigel episode. In one tweet, she said, “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” A few days later, she was fired for “insubordination.”
Cries of racism have continued under Washington Post CEO William Lewis, who ascended to the role in November 2023. Last summer, Lewis was routinely criticized in a “testy” meeting for his decision to appoint two men to senior roles who happened to be white. Lewis bowed to the mob, writing in a memo: “On the concerns many of you raised about creating a diverse workforce that looks more like America, I know I cannot just talk a good game, but need to show it. I assure you I will.”
Staffers were particularly incensed at the time over the departure of Executive Editor Sally Buzbee, who, prior to turning her ire on Lewis and publicly accusing him of attempting to control the newspaper’s editorial decisions, had described the former CEO, Fred Ryan, as “incompetent,” resulting in daily gossip over their relationship.
Nothing prepared the Post, however, for the meltdown that ensued following the decision not to publish an endorsement of then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The Washington Post Guild released a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” with the decision. Op-ed after op-ed in the Post’s own pages criticized the choice. The Post’s Karen Attiah — perhaps its most radical employee — called the decision an “absolute stab in the back” and “an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line.” An editor at the paper, David Maraniss, said, “The paper I’ve loved working at for 47 years is dying in darkness.”
When the Post editors declined to publish a political cartoon of owner Jeff Bezos on bended knee before Trump (an unimaginative concept to say the least), cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned in disgust. Several members of the editorial board left out of principle, and others fled in search of more successful publications. Columnist Jennifer Rubin left to found a publication with the tagline “Not owned by anybody.”
This culture of grievance doesn’t just reign supreme inside the walls of the Washington Post. Its writers perpetuate the woke frenzy through article after article.
For instance, rather than further investigate the transgender movement’s medical treatments for children — as the New York Times, to its credit, has done — the Post has continued full-on whitewashing for the most radical of the movement’s claims. In a piece last month, for instance, reporter Casey Parks simply regurgitated the narrative that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are “lifesaving” for kids.
The Washington Post’s reporters have also proudly seized every possible opportunity to attack Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner, and Amazon, the company he founded. This month, for example, one reporter pointed out with clear concern Amazon’s decision to remove from its website commitments titled “Equity for Black people” and “LGBTQ+ rights.”
Then there is the previously mentioned Karen Attiah, who, among other things, defended a CNN contributor who was fired for using the phrase “from the river to the sea”; claimed “Anti-blackness in this country is pervasive”; tweeted that white women are “lucky” that “we are just calling them ‘Karen’s,” rather than “calling for revenge”; and responded to President Joe Biden’s statement of support for Israel by saying, “I will never forgive Biden for this.” Last year also saw a flurry of Post columns in which she criticized Kamala Harris for supporting Israel.
It makes complete sense that the Washington Post is the paper that is collapsing in America today. If there is one sentiment uniting Americans right now, it is that the culture of woke repression that has reigned supreme for so many years — keeping Americans on edge and fearful of being canceled by the mob — has come to an end. People want more freedom of speech, open spaces to consider policy, and a richer diversity of thought.
The paper where woke writers scream “Comply!” to their colleagues and readers no longer has any business being one of the country’s top newspapers.
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The Post’s staffers are now acknowledging the total collapse of their publication. On Tuesday night, more than 400 Post journalists sent a letter to Bezos imploring him to intervene in the crisis.
Their foremost concern was their lack of confidence in Will Lewis, who previously achieved enormous success as chief executive of Dow Jones & Company and publisher of Wall Street Journal, only to encounter disdain and racial grievance as CEO of the Post.
Several Post reporters, alongside leaking the letter, dished anonymously to NPR that they were suspicious that Bezos picked Lewis for the position “because of his ease in handling conservative figures.” It was as though these staffers believed any association with conservatism would taint their organization. The staffers also communicated to NPR that there was backlash at the Post to Bezos as well because “he has publicly warmed up to President-elect Donald Trump.”
This ideological puritanism, which is exactly what put the Post in this position in the first place, will continue to run it into the ground.
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