Democracy on Life Support at WaPo
Say a prayer and make it fast.
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It would seem in recent weeks that The Washington Post has been in rapid free fall, and it couldn’t come at a worst time. But perhaps that’s by design.
Last Friday, Ann Telnaes—an editorial cartoonist at the paper since 2008 and the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for that medium—announced her resignation in a deeply troubling Substack essay, in which she revealed WaPo’s leadership had unprecedentedly killed a cartoon she submitted that was critical of billionaire and corporate support for Donald Trump.
The cartoon in question depicts Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong, Mickey Mouse (representing Disney and ABC News), and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos all genuflecting with bags of money before a towering idol of Trump:
The cartoon can only be deeply offensive to those uncomfortable with its unvarnished truth: billionaires and the media companies they own are rushing to obey in advance the wishes of a petty tyrant who has long been an enemy of the free press.
Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and Mr. Zuckerberg announced yesterday that the company is neutering its fact-checking operation across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. He also revealed that Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Trump supporter, would be joining Meta’s Board of Directors.
Meta donated exactly $0 to President Biden’s inauguration fund four years ago.
Open AI also announced they are donating a million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and likewise, they donated nothing to Pres. Biden’s four years ago.
Mr. Soon-Shiong blocked his paper from endorsing Vice President Harris in the election and killed a series of articles planned by the editorial board on the case against a second term for Trump. Following the election, he fired the entire editorial board and made it clear he wanted more conservative opinions at the paper, along with plans to implement an “AI-powered bias meter” to assess the outlet’s coverage.
Last month, the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC News, agreed to shell out $15 million to Trump’s fund for a future presidential foundation and museum as part of a settlement agreement for a defamation lawsuit brought against Disney by Trump over ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulous accurately stating on-air that the Republican Party’s leader had been found “liable for rape” in the New York civil trial brought by E. Jean Carroll.
Disney, of course, had a strong legal case against Trump’s claim of defamation but caved following the election out of fear of retribution.
And then there’s Mr. Bezos, whose company Amazon also donated a million to Trump’s inauguration fund, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
In late October, he killed the newspaper’s planned endorsement of Vice President Harris, offering an incredibly weak justification for doing so and drawing widespread backlash from numerous media luminaries, including Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the paper’s most famous alums.
This week, Amazon paid an astonishing $40 million to Melania Trump as part of a licensing agreement for a forthcoming documentary series, which, I think we can agree, would be met with swift and severe backlash across political media had Mrs. Obama or Dr. Biden been the recipient, let alone inked any deal of any size with any corporation as an incoming first lady.
None of this is terribly surprising to those who have been tracking WaPo’s slow descent as it inches ever closer to a zombie outlet.
It was only 14 months ago when Mr. Bezos named William Lewis as the paper’s publisher and CEO.
Mr. Lewis subsequently clashed with then-executive-editor Sally Buzbee over his attempt to kill his name being included in the paper’s coverage over the British phone hacking scandal. Mr. Lewis has been accused of leading the cover-up of that scandal and was the subject of a UK law enforcement investigation over his role as of this past July.
Last June, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik revealed that Mr. Lewis had offered him an exclusive interview in exchange for Mr. Folkenflik abandoning his own reporting on the mess. Mr. Folkenflik declined.
Ms. Buzbee left the paper in the wake of the power struggle and was replaced by former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray, who, it was revealed last month, tried to kill the paper’s coverage over the departure of widely beloved Managing Editor Madea Gold.
Ms. Gold had been considered the shoo-in to replace Ms. Buzbee, and when passed over for the position by Mr. Lewis, she was quickly hired by The New York Times as their Washington editor — not exactly a situation bereft of embarrassment for WaPo.
That was about a month ago. Since then, there’s been a growing exodus of talented and accomplished staff from the paper:
Josh Dawsey, who reports on political investigations and enterprise—and was part of the team that won WaPo’s 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of the Jan. 6th attack—is heading to the Wall Street Journal.
Ashley Parker, senior national political correspondent (and MSNBC political analyst), widely respected, was part of teams that won WaPo’s share of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 election and their aforementioned 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and their 2024 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage on the impact of the AR-15.
She’s headed to The Atlantic, along with WaPo national political reporter Michael Scherer, who has won several awards for his outstanding political coverage spanning nearly two decades. They also lured away national security and intelligence reporter Shane Harris back in August.
Tyler Pager, a rising star who covers the White House for the Post and won the 2022 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, was poached by NYT last week.
Leigh Ann Caldwell, senior political reporter at WaPo, who has had award-winning success in both print and broadcast media, was just named the incoming Chief Washington Correspondent for Puck.
This is all in addition to the three editorial board resignations of technology and society columnist Molly Roberts, national security and technology columnist David Hoffman, and director of audience for the opinions section Mitra Mili—along with former editor-at-large Robert Kagan quitting in protest—over the presidential endorsement mess in October.
There will probably be additional, notable reporter departures in the coming days and weeks.
And yet, we’re not done!
Yesterday, the Post announced a layoff of about a hundred staffers—four percent of its workforce—across its business division, probably due in no small part to the loss of more than a quarter million subscriptions over the PR catastrophe that resulted from the endorsement being killed.
It’s pretty tragic to watch.
The Washington Post has long been synonymous with the essential role of the free press in a healthy, functioning democracy in the same manner we associate Babe Ruth with baseball or July Fourth with fireworks or Dolly Parton with a clean soul.
For almost eight years, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” has been the slogan of the Post, adopted in response to Trump’s unprecedented assault on journalism and free speech.
It was permanently added to the masthead of print copies, displayed prominently on the paper’s website, and featured in the outlet’s 2019 Super Bowl ad, their first ever.
As the lights there continue to go out at an alarming rate, we’ll see how long it takes Mr. Bezos to kill the motto, too.
I am being awakened almost every night by the nightmare I see every day. Barbara Tuchman's Marching toward Folly is unfolding in front of me every day. I do not want to admit that I am in despair, because that would be a loss for me.
I jumped off the WaPo train when they refused to endorse Ms Harris. I have seen nothing to redeem them in my eyes.
I get most of my news here on Substack and on Mastodon. But even here, I am trimming my daily reading to Heather Cox Richardson and you, Charlotte. It really is all too much.
Thank you for your update on The Washington Post. It's sad to see such a once-great news source in decline. Further, it appears that The New York Times is also going in the same direction.
Perhaps a more appropriate motto for WaPo might be, "Hello darkness, my old friend."