This situation with the Washington Post has become THE media train-wreck story of the year. Last Friday, the Washington Post announced that they would not make an endorsement for president of the United States. The Post, like many other media outlets, rode a wave of “support journalism” during the Trump years, because people genuinely believed that the fourth estate could hold Donald Trump to some kind of account. Instead, WaPo and so many other newspapers have become corrupted in the past decade of Trump and Trumpism, failing to hold him to account. Then Jeff Bezos, owner of WaPo, hired one of Rupert Murdoch’s lackeys as CEO of the Post and everything has gone steadily to the depths of hell ever since, culminating in Bezos and Will Lewis killing the Post’s planned Kamala Harris endorsement. In the immediate wake of the killed endorsement, WaPo lost 200,000 subscribers, 8% of their business. Jeff Bezos responded by writing a mealy-mouthed op-ed explaining why he’s too chickensh-t to stand against literal fascism. Well, long story short, Bezos made it worse:
Deterioration of the Washington Post’s subscriber base continued on Tuesday, hours after its proprietor, Jeff Bezos, defended the decision to forgo formally endorsing a presidential candidate as part of an effort to restore trust in the media.
The publication has now shed 250,000 subscribers, or 10% of the 2.5 million customers it had before the decision was made public on Friday, according to the NPR reporter David Folkenflik.
A day earlier, 200,000 had left according to the same outlet.
The numbers are based on the number of cancellation emails that have been sent out, according to a source at the paper, though the subscriber dashboard is no longer viewable to employees.
The Washington Post has not commented on the reported numbers. The famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said on Tuesday he disagreed with the paper’s decision, adding that the outlet was “an institution reporting about Donald Trump and what he’s done and supported by the editorial page”.
NPR’s David Folkenflik has been doing outstanding reporting around all of this, and several Washington Post journalists are leaking information to him about the situation within the Post’s newsroom. Here’s some of what Folkenflik told NPR yesterday:
A historic moment for the Post: “This is, you know, pretty much perceived by everybody I’ve talked to in the Post as something that will go down as a historic moment – a kind of debacle. The numbers that I reported came from two people with direct knowledge. I must say I’ve gone to the Post a number of times to give them a chance to shoot it down. They have not done so. They said, we’re a privately held company, and we’re not going to give out that figure publicly. But that would be about 10% of their paid subscribers – all digital and paper paid subscribers – right now. It’s something of a calamity for them. It’s a collapse of many millions of dollars in revenue, although not all cancellations take effect instantaneously.
The all-staff meeting: “This afternoon, not very long ago, Matt Murray, the executive editor of The Washington Post, had an all-staff meeting with his newsroom of hundreds of journalists and was pressed on this question a number of times. He said he didn’t know the figures and didn’t really want to know them. And he specifically didn’t want to know them in part because he thought they would leak out.
Whether WaPo staff believe Bezos’ explanation, that an endorsement would fester perception of bias. “They’re finding it very hard to swallow. You know, he’s looking at the fact that we are at a time of historic lows, as you say, of trust in the media. But had this been done, you know, early this year, when the new publisher, Will Lewis, took over, or next year, after the elections and a new president took over, it would be viewed very differently. The staff, you know, posted their own dissents online in a column embraced by about 19 of his opinion editors. Several people resigned from the staff entirely. A couple stepped down from the editorial board. And they point to Bezos’ myriad business interests that you’ve mentioned. Many of them have myriad multibillion-dollar questions before the federal government, which may, once again, be run by Trump.
I don’t really have an answer for what should happen next, but I hope someone gets through to Bezos and at least tries to convince him that his current path is unsustainable. Perhaps he’ll change tack once the election is over – it would be hard to maintain this “business as usual” approach if (and hopefully when) Kamala Harris wins. The first item on the agenda should be sh-tcanning Will Lewis and making a big, public show of listening to the newsroom and bringing back endorsements. But I really don’t have the answer to “how can trust be regained after all of this?”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Is Bezos upset? Genuine question. According to the NY Times, Bezos wants to move WaPo’s reporting in a more conservative direction a la WSJ, and William Lewis fits into that scenario. The people most likely to ditch their subscriptions are people that want accountable reporting and if he wants to bring on conservative writers, we know what types of journalists are most likely to need to dust off their CVs.
Olivia Nuzzi is probably freshening up her lip fillers as we speak, ready to bang her way onto the staff.
Well Bezos has a type cough
You just know she has her “CV” ready to present ole Jeff.
@Miranda 💯😂😂😂😂
I’m not sure how upset he is. He may not care about the WP’s loss of subscribers but I bet he cares about perception. Which is that he’s a coward with no spine. I get he’s a billionaire and it could all roll off his back but eh I think he still cares about being called weak and pathetic by just about everyone right now.
I think he is shocked and stunned that his BS explanation has been completely rejected by everyone. Billionaires think they are gods and we’re all hanging on their every word.
The way. o earn back trust is for Besos to say 1) I messed up 2) I now understand that readers rely on the WaPo for their straight news reporting and their editorial 3) Here’s what I’ll do to regain your trust, starting with the endorsement of Kamala Harris.
He’ll do none of this and destroy the paper.
Yep. I don’t think I could come back until he is gone. It’s completely tainted and the work of every employee is now tainted with his ugliness
To paraphrase Kara Swisher: Post bad, reporters good. Sigh.
It’s really too bad, because the Post keeps the best tabs on all the stuff that goes down in DC. The Post is truly a public good, and it never should have been sold to Bezos. That said, I wish more people would cancel their Amazon Prime instead.
Cancel both
Honestly Amazon needs to be broken up. They have such a strangle-hold on the market that it is very difficult for many people and smaller businesses to cancel them. I know that for many of my elderly relatives, they rely on Amazon for delivery of essential items, including medical devices and supplies. Many Medicare D supplement plans use Amazon to ship items too. It is all fine and well to cancel individual subscriptions if you can; frankly, it has become a privilege to be able to cancel Amazon and still have access to different things in certain areas of the country. It shouldn’t be so and something needs to be done about this larger issue.
There are a lot of comments about how this loss of income wouldn’t affect Bezos at the end of the day. However, he bought this paper not for profit, but for influence. Losing readers means he is gonna have less influence on public opinion. That is why I hope more people cancel their subscription. Also, their new Murdoch editor refuted the story that Jeff was the one to kill the endorsement. You can see why he chose this guy as the editor. The WaPo is now led by a liar as an editor.
That is such a good point. Also never underestimate the impact of ego on someone like this. Being told to eff off by 250k people smarts for a man like him.
Doesn’t the Sun/Murdoch case that Will Lewis is named in go to trial in January? Will Lewis is going to be back in the news fairly soon, further diminishing the WP.
The stories of Bezos making a deal with Trump in exchange to kill a Harris endorsement is what’s damaging his claims of unbias. Play stupid games; vein stupid prizes.
Quite. If we didn’t know that he still wouldn’t look good in this situation but that is a truly terrible look. Tell us you sold your soul without telling us you sold your soul.
I wouldn’t trust him to do what he says, when he bought the paper he said he’d stay out of the business of running the newspaper. That coupled with his complete non-sequitur about ballot counting machines.. WTF, honestly, I canceled my WaPo subscription and am planning on canceling prime. I think we are all just done with billionaires ruining the world.
So damn done! One it 1000000 percent
I’m sorry for the journalists who work there and may lose their jobs.
But honestly, billionaires running the media is a very very bad thing and having the company collapse because of Bezos’s hubris and cowardice might help the industry in the long run.
The big media companies haven’t covered themselves with glory in the last decade or so. From their vilification of Hilary Clinton and downplaying of Trump’s crimes, to their failure to report on Joe Biden’s achievements, they’ve misled the public.
I hope this gives them all pause and gets them to rethink their political coverage.
Jas, I think they did all of that deliberately. The bm spent a lot of time vilifying immigrants in the UK in order to get people to vote for Brexit. Sound familiar? It’s pretty clear that the oligarchs in this Country want to be what the oligarchs in Russia are. They don’t care how they get that and will do everything to attain that position. That’s why they have downplayed how dangerous the people behind Trump are.
Unfortunately I paid for an annual subscription which isn’t up for renewal until February, but I did cancel so if my numbers aren’t in the 250k I hope it means the fallout will continue.
I read in a comment by a Washington Post subscriber that you can cancel an annual prescription and get a prorated refund. It may have to be kicked up to a supervisor, but if you insist it can be done.
I also saw someone who mentioned an online cancellation hadn’t stuck, so I went and checked mine. I absolutely cancelled Friday when Lewis and Bezos started their nonsense.
But today it was back again, scheduled to autorenew in February. Cancelled it AGAIN today. It looks like this time it stuck. So my cancellation wasn’t even in the #s they’ve reported. I wonder how many other people that happened to? If so it could be even more than 10% of their subscriber base bailing.
I’d rather send that money to NPR, The Guardian etc to support their journalism.
Also I did cancel Prime so it won’t auto-renew and don’t plan to make any more purchases . I’ve got one more delivery coming, a book my local bookstore couldn’t get. (Apparently many many people want to read what Christine Benz has to say about planning for retirement)
And I celebrated my Amazon liberation last night with a trip to that local bookstore … and left with 4 books 🙂
This is assuming that Bezos actually gives a shit about journalism in general (trust in media, HA) or the WaPo in particular. I think this assumption is false.
He cares about showing off to his fellow billionaires, Space Origin and his blowup doll of a girlfriend. Actually running a journalism business, or any business is not interesting to him anymore. Just look at his fillers, his steroid muscles…this is not a man who cares about reality. He wants to be respected as This Big Macho Guy with billions, flying to space and banging hot girls and stuff! He’s just Elon Musk without the drug-addled crazy and Twitter addiction.
“He’s just Elon Musk without the drug-addled crazy and Twitter addiction.”
OMG THIS!!
I’m glad that people are speaking their disappointment by unsubscribing. That’s one of the big ways that these people will understand the impact of their actions.
Also as a side note, I’m terrified. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared of a US election ( I’m not an American and don’t live in the US). I honestly wish I could do something from abroad. I’m just praying that Kamala Harris wins by more than a small margin, because these people are gearing up for a battle.
How are you all dealing with your anxieties these days? Any tips would be so appreciated.
It is terrifying, @joany. I get to points where I just can’t watch or read the news anymore. Maybe you could just take a break for a while and not pay attention to the news coming out of the US? Except for this site, of course! 😁
I feel you @joany! The horrors persist. But so do I!
I’ve decided that everyday until the election I’m picking a non-profit that supports a variety of causes that I believe represent the BEST of America and I’m making a donation. (During the year I have regular auto donations for the ones closest to my heart)
I can’t canvass and I didn’t write swing-vote postcards. But I can sure send some money to places that need it, and organizations that will keep doing the good work and fighting the good fight (regardless of who wins) it’s gonna take ALL OF US to care for each other.
This is inspiring, thank you.
@Joany
Article / opinion pieces like this one help reduce my anxiety. I know it’s wapo. I read it through my library and will delete my account after the election. Unlocked article by the truly wonderful Dana Milbank. I normally don’t read books about politics but I plan to read his as he has repeatedly impressed me, especially with his article about how this Republican House has been the least productive since sometime in the 1700s or 1800s.
https://wapo.st/3YJIlBe
I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription a year ago when I started noticing an incredible drop in delivery time. And then watching Bezos and his mistress swan around Europe all summer with ‘celebrities’ and (what I can only assume were paid) fawning articles about them in Page 6 sealed the deal. Everyone I know has cancelled their WP subscription and many of them also went ahead and also cancelled Prime. He truly believes he is smarter than everyone else and his Op-Ed yesterday proved it. I wish we could just beam him and Elno Musk back to their home planet and be rid of these mediocre billionaire ogres.
Good! Glad you and your friends unsubscribed.
The more, the better
Gonna be tough to get new subscribers.
Bezos has destroyed the trust in the WaPo.
People are correct to cancel.
Bezos had a chance once again to do some good with his billions and chose not to – again. Whatever happens – I feel badly for the folks who will lose their jobs . Bezos cares about no one but himself.
He’s also run Whole Foods down to the lowest level.
THIS! What a difference from what Mackenzie Bezos has opted to do with her millions/billions.
I’d venture Lauren Sanchez supports/encourages the memememe attitude vs encouraging him to be philanthropic, etc too. She seems to have a level of influence over him.
And heck yes on Whole Foods. Nothing special there anymore but still overpriced.
“Perhaps he’ll change tack once the election is over – it would be hard to maintain this “business as usual” approach if (and hopefully when) Kamala Harris wins. The first item on the agenda should be sh-tcanning Will Lewis and making a big, public show of listening to the newsroom and bringing back endorsements.”
He might just go full fascist maga. He clearly doesn’t like being criticized and thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. to
The only thing Bezos cares about is banging silicon, making horrible LOTR spin-offs, and yachting around in his underpants. What a joke of a human.
Good, but the tabloid f#cker will lean into right wing bull$#!t to get the numbers back up which will be even worse for WAPO subscriptions. I wonder if Amazon and ALL Amazon subsidiaries have taken a noticeable loss in subscriptions yet?
I do love a midweek good news story.
I think the loss of subscribers will have no impact on Bezos. He can afford to run the paper at a loss as long as he has influence in Washington. I don’t see Kamala closing her door to him if she wins the Presidency.
It obviously had enough of an effect when WAPO was down 200k subscribers for him to publish that word salad op-ed.
Which then made things worse and long may it continue.
Bezos and Musk apparently both believed that their self-assessed brilliance would translate from their original business models to more generally influential news media. They were wrong.
Unfortunately the disarray that they’re leaving in their respective wakes have profound, destabilizing, expensive, and irreparable consequences for the rest of us.
Well, I don’t have a WAPO subscription to cancel, so I canceled my Amazon Prime.
****Celebitchy, I hope when you do product features in the future, you’ll have options on where to purchase them other than Amazon
Maybe we’ll all start having to shop the old way and go to Target again.
Yep. Target here I come lol
Omg , great idea. I don’t why it didn’t occur to me to do that. I’m gonna cancel my Amazon prime right now.
Great to see this.
So happy to see people at this website doing the right thing so often
And the sad part is they’ll deal with it by cutting jobs – not admitting a mistake, not trying to do the right thing. They’ll just say “we lost ad revenue, every department needs to cut 20% of their workforce.”
I wish his ex wife would use her billions to buy up newspapers around the country. Put some independent board in charge with people who have a track record of being fair but tough. At least one national paper and one in each state. Employ journalists that are tenacious and know they won’t lose their jobs if they write about some big company polluting a river. I hope she is watching all of this and scheming a way to save the day.
That would be amazing. Omg.
I don’t know if she has that kind of money – or if anyone does, really. But I would subscribe for sure.
She’s such a solidly good human.
I love this dream! I would subscribe on day 1 as a founding member at whatever it costs. I crave a large-scale newspaper that I can trust.
I wish I had been a subscriber just so that I could unsubscribe.
I canceled my Amazon prime years ago just because I didn’t like how they treated their employees. I very rarely purchase anything through Amazon now unless it is the only place that something is available. And then I usually just decide I can live without it.
So remember back in 2019 when Bezos announced he was divorcing his first wife? There was talk here on Celebitchy that Trump was behind the National Enquirer’s outing of Bezos’ affair with Lauren Sanchez. Kaiser, you nailed it: “the National Enquirer has always been in bed with Donald Trump, and Trump thinks Jeff Bezos is his enemy because Bezos owns the Washington Post (and because Bezos is a lot richer than Trump). So now I wonder if this whole Bezos story came from Donald Trump making a new deal with the Russians and David Pecker to secretly get access to all of Bezos’ phones, emails and what have you. *adjusts tin foil hat*”. IF this is the case, there’s more to this story than we’ll ever know.
I remember when he was blackmailed by a slimy reporter threatening to out his affair and publish lewd information. Bezos didn’t give him a chance; he published a letter admitting the affair and slammed the blackmail tactics. I guess he’s lost his way since then! Now he’s the coward with no spine and a lot of face filler. What a downfall.
I haven’t canceled yet because I do love so many of the reporters who work there. Instead, I canceled Prime. So yesterday I read Jen Rubin’s piece in the WaPo. It was brilliant. It didn’t mention Bezos by name but was a whole piece on how the media will self censor itself when dealing with fascists and how elites think they can work with fascists but they can’t. And the number one rule when dealing with fascists – don’t obey in advance!
Apparently even a year-long Washington Post subscription can be canceled with prorated refund. A previous subscriber said it may get kicked up to a supervisor, but keep insisting.
Another commenter said: “Cancelled after decades as a subscriber. Beware! Cancelling online did not take twice! I had to call. At first they refused my refund, they finally agreed.”
So be persistent in canceling if that’s your intention!
Update:
“Good question. As mentioned in the article, some subscribers have annual subscriptions, which means we pay an annual fee, once each year. The post will prorate a refund if this annual subscription is cancelled in the first 6 months. There is no refund after 6 months and the subscriber continues to have access for the remaining year.”
Even if it has been more than 6 months I would still insist, if only to make a point.
Bozo is simply doing to the Washington Post what Leon did to Twitter. Fascists gonna fash.
Bezos wrote condescendingly to readers that he was making a ‘principled decision.’ He does not care about the history of WaPo, journalism, or how many subscribers he loses – which will result in people losing their jobs. He is hedging his bets about his contracts with the government. Period. It’s only about the money. Billionaires are bad for democracy.
I couldn’t focus on the article because I was so scared looking at his girlfriend. What in God’s name has she done to herself?!!! She’s like a caricature. All I could think about was the episode of Agatha All Along where the witches drunk some poison that distorted their faces….smh.
@Thelma, everyone here feels that. A smart commenter replied to someone who objected to discussing her current (tragic) appearance by saying, this is all of a piece. It’s his vision, what he wants. Every time I see her I think that she looks like an upside down, Disney-fied, dark universe version of MacKenzie. Without guardrails, his fantasies can go as far as he wants.
Watching it writ literally on another human is gruesome. I’m sure he’s enthusiastic about her “improvements” and wardrobe.
If there is a young teen girl involved, it’s just as well if she’s not being reared up anywhere near this.
I have a lot of empathy for Lauren Sanchez. Supposedly she is very sweet person. But holy hell her kids were 10, 12 and 16 when she started swanning around the world with Bezos. The 10 year old was her only daughter. I remember being 10 (started menstruating) and when my daughter was 10. Did (does) she just leave them with the nanny? Her ex remarried and has a newish baby.
That dick can’t be that good! And dollars to donuts he moves on. She’ll be 55 soon.
Just canceled my Amazon account. So glad to hear that others have as well. #deleteyouramazonaccount has less than 100 posts…
@Joany
Article / opinion pieces like this one help reduce my anxiety. I know it’s wapo. I read it through my library and will delete my account after the election. Unlocked article by the truly wonderful Dana Milbank. I normally don’t read books about politics but I plan to read his as he has repeatedly impressed me, especially with his article about how this Republican House has been the least productive since sometime in the 1700s or 1800s.
https://wapo.st/3YJIlBe
The only way this situation can get worse is if he sells WaPo to private equity. They will just suck the life out of the paper and load it up with debt.
Stop shopping at amazon. Stop advertising for amazon.
My neighbor reminded me of this. Jamal Khashoggi was the Saudi Arabian dissident and WaPo columnist who was brutally assassinated after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018.
The CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s assassination. President Trump disagreed with the CIA’s conclusion (because of course), and both houses of Congress disagreed with Trump to a greater or lesser extent.|
See below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi
The Post has hosted many great journalists. I have really mixed feelings about the reporting staff having to suffer for the spineless jellyfish who own and run the paper.
I am definitely canceling Amazon, though!