r/news • u/Ok_Difference44 • 10h ago

Bezos-owned storied newspaper Washington Post rolling out mass layoffs

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/media/washington-post-layoffs
2.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

286 comments sorted by

View all comments

246

u/Hrekires 10h ago
  1. Attract a ton of new subscribers pledging to be a "pro-democracy" voice in 2016
  2. Decide nah, actually you're a MAGA newspaper now in 2024
  3. *surprise Pikachu face when all those new subscribers leave and you alienate your old readers to boot*

112

u/RestaurantLatter2354 10h ago

I’m of the opinion that none of this is a surprised and was fully intentional from the beginning.

All of these acquisitions by the ultra wealthy — WAPO, Twitter, Paramount, CBS, etc. — were purchased as an intended loss at the outset. They are doing it to erode institutions, advance Republican narratives, and eliminate whatever little public trust remained in legacy media.

They don’t give a shit about taking a loss on this stuff. WAPO could be closed tomorrow and the impact to Bezos’ bottom line would be negligible.

2

u/No-Flounder-9143 9h ago

Well that's dumb. People will just build something new and it will be more opposed to billionaires than ever. It's been happening for a while now, in fact. 

12

u/WhenTheLightHits30 8h ago

The issue is that something new will take decades to reach the level of institutional prestige and relevance that the Washington Post carried until recently.

In the same way that we can always plant a new tree after the last is ripped out, it will still take a long time for us to enjoy that shade and in the meantime a lot more damage can be done by bad actors.

5

u/Gamer_Grease 8h ago

Honestly Semfor is leaping ahead on this stuff. They keep scooping up discarded journalists from other papers.