People have been telling me that we should have broken up long ago, but this was not just any relationship. You see, I am a native Washingtonian, my career was in journalism, and The Washington Post had been a constant presence in my life since I learned the word “newspaper.”
But this week, I am finally going through with the breakup.
The final straw was Wednesday’s announcement that The Post is laying off roughly 30 percent of its staff—closing its sports and Sunday books sections, shrinking its Metro desk to a staff of 12 to cover a metro area of 6 million people across the District, Maryland and Virginia, and closing several of its foreign bureaus.
True, I could have jumped ship with an estimated 250,000 subscribers in the fall of 2024 when Jeff Bezos, the current owner of the paper, spiked an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris in the final weeks of her presidential campaign. That proved to be an early sign that Bezos was changing from someone heralded, albeit warily, as a savior of the paper that built its reputation on the fearless reporting of the Watergate scandal to just another billionaire who can’t be bothered with such petty things as protecting a critical cornerstone of democracy.
I could have jumped ship a few weeks later when Bezos announced that the opinion pages would be limited to articles extolling free markets and personal liberties, prompting several of the paper’s best columnists to depart. Or when Will Lewis, a former Rupert Murdoch executive who was embroiled in the infamous British tabloid phone-hacking scandal, was brought in as publisher, and another Murdoch acolyte, Matt Murray, was brought in from The Wall Street Journal as editor. Neither brought to their jobs any real appreciation for the heritage of The Post, the battles that had been fought to make the newsroom a leader in the diversity needed to cover the kaleidoscopic diversity of the Washington area, or the relationship the paper should have with the local community.
Heck, the day last summer when print copies of The Washington Post landed on doorsteps with the Metro section tucked behind the Style section instead of having a section of its own, I should have gotten the message: The Washington Post just isn’t into me anymore. Certainly not the me that sees Washington as more than “the nation’s capital,” a factory town that produces politics and policy instead of cars, steel and appliances. Not the me who sees the majority of Washingtonians as people who search for deals at the neighborhood Giant, struggle to pay rent, and will never be near an expense-account meal unless they are the ones in a restaurant serving it.
Truth be told, The Post was never a gritty, blue-collar paper, but at its best it showed the results of reporters and editors who pushed it to be more than a powerful institution for powerful people. And because this city needs a news organization that cares about what affects its everyday citizens—local government decisions, the quality of schools, where crime was rising or falling and why, the successes and challenges of residents that helps people understand and appreciate their neighbors—I wanted the Post to be the best that it could be, for my hometown as well as for the nation.
But Bezos’ conspicuous silence lately shows he doesn’t feel the same way. He was not present when the deep cuts to the staff and section closures were announced. He did not respond to social media posts from key members of his staff beseeching him to not make the cuts. Astonishingly, he had nothing to say when in January the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, whose beat was the impact of the Trump administration’s slashing and burning of much of the federal bureaucracy.
On the other hand, Amazon, which Bezos founded and which provides much of his wealth, is speaking loudly with its cash. It contributed $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration fund as well as to Trump’s gaudy ballroom project, for which he demolished the East Wing of the White House. Then there is “Melania,” the documentary about the First Lady’s preparation for Trump’s second term for which Amazon has spent at least $65 million—$40 million for the documentary rights and $35 million for a marketing campaign.
Trump is taking a wrecking ball to our democracy, plastering his name and gold filigree on the rubble, and Bezos’ company is bankrolling a significant share of the damage. Meanwhile, his vaunted slogan for The Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness,” long ago was rendered empty words by the executive suite, even as the newsroom still struggled to produce the stories that gave that slogan meaning.
But today Bezos is playing the bored, spoiled baby who has moved on to the next set of playthings. I still hope that The Washington Post can come out of this period of darkness, perhaps under a new ownership that has an authentic passion for the essential role good journalism plays in a democracy and for the city in the paper’s nameplate. Until then, I’m building new relationships with news sources—like the employee-owned The 51st—that care as much about my hometown as I do.
(Disclosure: I once worked for a subsidiary of The Washington Post, and was a founding member of the Washington Association of Black Journalists, which championed better representation of people of color in the Post newsroom and in its news coverage.)
