The ongoing destruction of the Washington Post is such a sick sign of the times. I canceled my subscription last March, and since then Jeff Bezos and his flunkies have only grown bolder in their gutting of the paper. I appreciated former Executive Editor Martin Baron’s statement after the complete destruction of the sports and books sections. He knows whereof he speaks when he writes:
The Post’s challenges, however, were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top —from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands… Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.
(Found via Ruth Marcus’s excellent New Yorker piece, “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post”)
