#bezos

BREAKING: Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron RIPS into Jeff Bezos and Trump in scathing response to the mass layoffs at the Post that will cripple its journalistic ability! Journalists around the world were shocked to learn today that they had been abruptly laid off by Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post; one of them, Lizzie Johnson, was literally in a warzone in Ukraine when she got the news she no longer had a job. Bezos, who is the richest man in the world and just spent $40 million on a personal bribe to the Trump family, laid off a third of the Washington Post’s staff — over 300 journalists, including the entire sports section and its Middle East and Ukraine bureaus. Former editor Marty Baron issued a powerful statement in response to the layoffs, laying the blame exactly where it belongs: “This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations. The Washington Post’s ambitions will be sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff will be further depleted, and the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever.” “Of course, there were acute business problems that had to be addressed. No one can deny that. This is a period of head-spinning change in media consumption. The response to that is necessarily difficult and severely disruptive. Radical innovation is required.” “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.” “The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. 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.” Bezos could easily pay to run the Washington Post at full capacity no matter what the profits looked like. The point is he DOESN’T want to. He, and Trump, and the rest of the oligarchs, DON’T want reporters shining a spotlight on what they are doing to this country, to their workers, to their alleged trafficked child slaves. “Democracy dies in Darkness” is the Post’s motto. Bezos is killing it in broad daylight.

This is a great way to practice not letting them.

Anticapitalist graphic by Meme Industrial Complex