Here’s a bit of useful history.
In 1933, the then-bankrupt Washington Post was purchased by the wealthy financier Eugene Meyer. With Meyer’s passing, the paper was inherited by his daughter and son-law, Katherine Meyer Graham and husband Phil Graham.
As his wife noted in her memoirs, Phil Graham himself met with tragedy, suffering from manic depression and eventually taking his own life. With that, Kay Graham was on her own – and decidedly made the Washington Post the paper to read when it came to coverage of all things Washington.
Famously, along the way, she and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee managed the paper through a series of what liberals perceived as heroic crusades, from the Pentagon Papers to Watergate to Iran-Contra. As a sign of its esteem in media circles, the paper won 18 Pulitzer Prizes, a total that eventually climbed to 73.
And then, the golden era, as it were, inevitably ended. In 2013 it was purchased by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Now, in June of 2024, the paper is in trouble. Having staked its flag to being in the anti-Trump media, its circulation has headed south. Which is where Bezos and his picks to run the paper have run into trouble.
After the sacking of Executive Editor Sally Buzbee by the Bezos-appointed chief executive William Lewis, CNN reported this:
The Post said that Matt Murray, former editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, will immediately replace Buzbee as executive editor. Murray will serve in that position through the 2024 presidential election.
After the November election, Robert Winnett, deputy editor of The Telegraph Media Group, will take on a new role as editor of The Post, overseeing its core news offering. Murray will then transition to overseeing the formation of a new newsroom at The Post, one which focuses on service and social media journalism.
Lewis said the creation of an additional newsroom division represents a “definitive step away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach and moving towards meeting our audiences where they are.
Cue the nightmare and staff revolt. This story, written by four Post reporters reported this of an allegation Lewis had been involved in a controversy centered on the theft of a forthcoming copy of the memoirs of ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Post story reported:
The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.
That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of the Washington Post later this year.
And with that, shortly thereafter journalist Winnett’s potential job at The Post went up in smoke.
Rebellion was afoot in the Post newsroom. Lewis, it was said, “had lost the legitimacy to lead” the paper.
There’s more, a lot more. But the bottom line is that with the Bezos takeover and his attempt to bring change to the sinking fortunes of the paper – to save it – open rebellion has broken out with the staff.
As noted two weeks ago in this space:
In short, these liberal activists posing as journalists would in fact rather see the paper collapse then start to report stories in a fair and balanced fashion that can be seen as not tilting left.
Which is to say, the internals at the Post have, in a mere two weeks, gotten worse.
And that in turn means there is one seriously basic fact at the Post.
Jeff Bezos may have purchased the Washington Post. On paper he is the owner. But the left-wing activists who are masquerading as journalists are determined to not allow Bezos to run the paper he owns.
Somewhere Eugene Meyer and Katherine Graham, Phil Graham and Ben Bradlee are rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.
For the Washington Post, time has moved on.
And not in a good way.