Sometimes schadenfreude is the best freude of all.
It seems that the Democracy-dies-in-darkness people are feeling a little darkness themselves. Since 2020, The Washington Post has experienced a 50% decline in its audience, and the enterprise lost $70 million last year. Seventy-million dollars? Hey, that’s real money even to WaPo owner Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest men.
Now the media enterprise, which somehow still manages to dominate the news cycle in its backyard market of Virginia, is tearing itself apart in controversy over the departure of executive editor Sally Buzbee. Publisher and CEO Will Lewis has told staff that the losses cannot continue, changes need to take place, and employees need to get with the program.
“The tone was blaming the newsroom for the losses — like that was why there has to be a new team,” a source complained to the New York Post. “You can imagine how people feel about that.”
You can read about all the pissing and moaning in the New York Post article.
It’s not clear if the fact that the enterprise is losing $70 million a year — out of an estimated $310 million in revenue, according to Zippia — has penetrated the thinking of the complainers.
Getting paid by one of the world’s richest men is the epitome of privilege. No other mature business enterprise in the country can afford for long to lose 22 cents on every dollar it generates. These elitists think they perform a job so crucial, so noble, so world-saving, that someone else should pay them to continue doing what they’re doing without any sacrifice on their part.
Hah. Try being a journalist without a sugar daddy. Start your own blog or sign up with Substack and see what life is like.
(My apologies to the Post reporters who actually do good work. But I’ll bet my bottom dollar that they’re not the ones complaining.)
— JAB