Washington Post 'rudderless' as Bezos' paper engulfed by layoffs, talent exodus ahead of Trump's second term
2025 has already become a rough year for The Washington Post as its years-long identity crisis and financial struggles continue to plague the Jeff Bezos-owned paper ahead of the second Trump presidency.
While newsroom tensions and money woes have been persistent, they were taken to new heights following Bezos' appointment of Will Lewis as The Post's publisher and CEO. Tasked to revitalize the paper's cratering business model, Lewis had some choice words for his staff in a June 2024 meeting following the ousting of its executive editor Sally Buzbee.
"We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff ... I can’t sugarcoat it anymore," Lewis said at the time.
WASHINGTON POST BEGINS LAYOFFS, CUTTING 4 PERCENT OF WORKFORCE
Fast-forward to 2025, and Lewis has alienated himself from his newsroom.
"The company feels rudderless right now," one staffer told Fox News Digital. "Will Lewis has basically disappeared since his infamous 'no one's reading your stuff' meeting from last year, he hasn't named a permanent executive editor, if he has a business plan, he hasn't communicated it to his employees, or the public, or to anyone, it seems, except [Puck reporter] Dylan Byers… with no clarity on when and in what direction the company is headed."
The staffer fumed while speculating that Lewis had been the source of the reporting of Puck's Dylan Byers, telling Fox News Digital "that's apparently how Lewis prefers to communicate with his staff."
"In the last six months, maybe more, we have heard from Will Lewis exactly once -- in his bizarrely passive-aggressive email after the election announcing the return to office mandate," the staffer said.
Last summer, Lewis appointed former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray as acting executive editor until a permanent replacement for Buzbee was found. But an exhaustive search has resulted in no one taking the position, leaving Lewis to appoint Murray as the new permanent executive editor, according to a recent report from Byers.
Lewis' blunt comments may have irked his staff, but Bezos' decision to halt The Post's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris just days before the election sparked a firestorm not just in the newsroom but among readers as well. The Post was already on pace to lose a staggering $77 million by the end of the year, but that hit doesn't even account for the whopping 250,000 people who reportedly canceled their subscriptions as a result of the non-endorsement.
Many critics, both inside and outside of the paper, interpreted Bezos' decision as appeasement to then-candidate and now-President-elect Donald Trump.
Paul Farhi, a former media writer for The Washington Post who left in 2023 as a result of company-wide mass buyouts, called Bezos' move the "single most disastrous" management decision in the paper's history.
"The morale is very low, of course," Farhi told Fox News Digital. "Things would be not great if the paper had management that had made all the right moves. But it strikes me that they've made a series of terrible moves in response to deteriorating, larger economic conditions, which have made things a lot worse."
Posties remain alarmed by the exodus of talent in recent weeks "with no apparent effort to stop the bleeding," current staffers have said. The non-endorsement led to the resignations of editor-at-large Robert Kagan and multiple editorial board members. In the weeks since, several high-profile staffers have announced departures for other outlets, including reporters Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Tyler Page and LeeAnn Caldwell, columnist Charles Lane and veteran editor Matea Gold. Fox News Digital also learned that The Post's health and science editor Stephen Smith is leaving for The New York Times.
Farhi called the departures a "vote of no confidence" in publisher Will Lewis.
"These departures are in reflection a vote of no confidence in him and the management of the paper," he said. "You know, politics isn't the only thing the Washington Post does, but it's a big part of the franchise. And when you're losing the core, you know, some of the best people who you've developed over the years to be the part of that franchise, it's really demoralizing and really undermines the overall enterprise. You know, they'll hire back. They'll find people. Will they be as good? That's a big question."
WASHINGTON POST IN ‘DISARRAY’ AFTER CARTOONIST QUITS, STAFF EXODUS
What could also be fueling the exits is the ideological battle that appears to be taking shape inside The Post. As Semafor's Ben Smith recently wrote, many employees were "sold" on the idea that The Post's mission was to be a "#Resistance newspaper." However, Bezos himself alluded to making reforms at the paper in an op-ed defending his endorsement decision.
"Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose," the Amazon founder wrote in October. "Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility."
Bezos, like several billionaires in Silicon Valley, has extended olive branches to President-elect Trump since his victory. Bezos met with him at Mar-a-Lago last month and donated $1 million to his inaugural fund. Amazon Prime also announced this week it will be producing a documentary giving an "unprecedented behind-the-scenes look" at First Lady Melania Trump, which will be released globally both in theaters and in streaming.
The Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes mocked Bezos depicting him and others groveling at Trump's feet in a cartoon that editors refused to publish. She resigned in protest last week.
The Washington Post's in-house media critic Erik Wemple spoke out against a new policy implemented by Murray, who said the paper shouldn't cover itself when asked about the lack of coverage of Telnaes' resignation.
"I couldn't possibly dissent more strongly from that policy," Wemple reacted on Monday. "The Post's willingness over the years to cover its slip-ups and scandals has helped to set it apart from the many news organizations that refuse to hold themselves to the same rules to which they hold politicians, CEOs, professional athletes, etc. And it's something, I believe, that subscribers have appreciated."
In addition to the recent newsroom drama, The Washington Post implemented layoffs this week, impacting about 4% of the entire company, targeting its business divisions while its journalists were spared.
Despite their personal dismay at the current state of the paper, two Posties tell Fox News Digital they aren't looking to leave.
"I'd like to try to ride it through," one said. "I love the company, love the people I work with and for."
The staffer urged Lewis to "treat his employees like adults."
"Tell us his vision for the company, explain his path for us to get there, and hire a talented and inspirational executive editor to take us there. Do your job. Stop letting the company drift into obsolescence and stem the bleeding of talent," they said.
One former staffer slammed the "self-inflicted" damage being done by their once-beloved employer.
"It's very sad to see how quickly everything that was built has been dismantled," the veteran ex-Postie said.
The former staffer called out Lewis and Murray, insisting "neither is willing to take a stand" against Bezos. They took a swipe at Murray's new policy on Post journalists not covering itself, predicting the policy will soon apply to not covering Amazon as well.
"It's truly tragic," they said.
The Washington Post did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News' David Rutz contributed to this report.