Jeff Bezos had a chance to save jobs at the Washington Post—and he just… didn’t.
Washington City Paper owner Mark Ein approached the Post with an offer to buy the paper’s sports and local desks after reports surfaced in late January that the sections were on the chopping block, The Verge reported on Tuesday. The deal would have kept journalists employed and ensured D.C. residents continued to benefit from local coverage.
Then-CEO Will Lewis was reportedly open to the idea. But talks abruptly ended when the layoffs were announced last Wednesday—including the elimination of both desks Ein wanted to purchase.
THE DETAILS: The layoffs affected some 400 employees, gutting the international, local, sports, and editing desks at the once-iconic paper. Bezos bought the Post in 2013 for $250 million. Now he’s overseeing its decimation.
Ein responded to the chaos on social media: “There is now a massive hole in our community that needs to be filled. I’m on it!”
The Washington Post did not respond to requests for comment from either The Verge or The Daily Beast.
BUT BUT BUT: The criticism from Post alumni has been blistering. Veteran White House journalist Peter Baker didn’t mince words, writing on Twitter: “No struggling newspaper ever saved itself by becoming a worse and less essential product. But what’s happening today at the @washingtonpost is not just the latest devastating contraction of the news industry; it’s the gutting of an American institution vital for a healthy society.”
Don Graham, whose family owned the paper for eight decades before Bezos, also weighed in. “It’s a bad day,” he wrote on Facebook. “I am sad that so many excellent reporters and editors—and old friends—are losing their jobs. My first concern is for them; I will do anything I can to help.”
OF COURSE: Lewis managed to make things worse. One day after hundreds of people lost their jobs, he was spotted on the red carpet at the NFL Honors ceremony in San Francisco. Priorities.
He resigned on Saturday, and his farewell memo was a masterclass in missing the point. Lewis thanked exactly one person: Jeff Bezos. “The institution could not have a better owner,” he wrote. The journalists he just helped ax? Not a mention.
WHY IT MATTERS: A billionaire had the opportunity to preserve local journalism in the nation’s capital—journalism that holds power accountable and serves a community. Instead, the Post’s owner chose to eliminate those desks entirely, even when a buyer was standing right there, checkbook in hand.
This isn’t just about business decisions or “industry contractions.” It’s about what happens when the richest man on Earth treats a democratic institution like a line item to be optimized. Local news is already dying across America. The Post was supposed to be different. Bezos made sure it isn’t.