(Part 2)
Decline of Washington Post
In the year 2013 Jeff Bezos purchased Washington Post Newspaper for 250 million dollars from Don Graham.
In the first meeting with staff on 4 September 2013, Bezos assured “a new golden era for the Washington Post.” He is also reported to have said:
“I finally concluded that I could provide runway—financial runway—because I don’t think you can keep shrinking the business,….. You can be profitable and shrinking. And that’s a survival strategy, but it ultimately leads to irrelevance, at best. And, at worst, it leads to extinction.”
A decade later, the fine words of the projected policy are abandoned, altogether. Forget shrinking, today Washington Post is melting like the ice cube on hot plate. But let us start from 2016.
Washington Post became profitable for a few years riding on the demand due to elections in USA in 2016 but it slumped back into decline. It lost 75 million dollars in 2023 and about 100 million dollars 2024. That is about 70% erosion of capital.
In private companies losses or profit do not come as surprise. Tax Planning and fund deployment happen in advance. Yesterday I had a meeting with a friend about the planning the taxes for next financial year that is 2026-2027. Please note that we are in February 2026 and Financial year 2026-27 will commence on 1 April 2026. Planning happens years in advance. If losses are going to occur, businesses generally know beforehand.
There was no pandemic in 2023-25. How millions in losses occurred to Washington Post, without any prior warning is beyond my comprehension.
In newspapers or the media, losses are mentioned as if something struck from sky on a particular day. It does not happen that way. It is a slow bleed. The daily seepage of blood is visible to those who look for it. In today’s era of computers, it is far more easy to keep tab on finances and have a micro watch on each sector of commercial operations.
Mass Lay-Off
Year 2023 saw first round of lay off by voluntary buyouts of about 200 people cutting down the strength of paper from one thousand to eight hundred.
On Wednesday 4 February 2026 another lay off of 300 newsroom staffers announced. Sports department is shut down. The reporters covering cultural and social events would also cover sports. The metro staff, already cut to about forty staffers during the past five years, has been shrunk to about twelve. The foreign desks will be reduced to approximately twelve locations from more than twenty. The books section and the flagship podcast, “Post Reports,” has been closed to cut cost.
The announcement was left to the executive editor, Matt Murray, and human-relations chief Wayne Connell. Murray said the retrenched Post would “concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact,” focusing on areas such as politics and national security. No one really knows what that means in real world. Was Washington Post not reporting with authority earlier? Did the fired newsroom staffers do something to stop it?
Real problem is that the people are not buying the newspapers. Jeff Bezos bought the newspaper for political maneuvering, without any concrete plan to change its business model. Bezos ‘hoped’ that it will transition to digital platform and will ‘shine’ outpacing all other publications. It did attain 70% of revenue from digital but it was not enough.
Unfortunately, hope is no business model in the world of commerce where cut throat competition is the rule and only innovation makes survival possible.
Flip Flop Editorial Policy
Washington Post was a left leaning newspaper. It had a subscriber base which wanted to read what they believe. For ten years Bezos did almost nothing to balance the one-sided view of the paper.
Last year, in February 2025 Bezos announced that the newspaper’s opinion section will focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets”, and pieces opposing those views will not be published. He is quoted to have written a memo with these instructions:
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defence of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,……viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others……There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views…….Today, the internet does that job.”
Him comparing a newspaper to “internet” as a whole reveals Bezos’ confusion. Of all people he should have known that different platforms on the internet do that job. Internet is nothing without platforms. He created the largest one. Which platform he was talking about? Post itself is now a platform with 70% revenue coming from digital medium. To implement this new policy a new editor was hired in June 2025.
Adam O’Neal was hired as new Opinion Editor. He publicly acknowledged the policy to advocate free markets and personal liberties. From a left leaning newspaper the paper had now become a pamphlet of its owners personal view only talking about just two topics. Within days, several editorial board members resigned and 200,000 subscribers cancelled their subscriptions.
The paper also refused to endorse the candidacy of Kamala Harris in 2024, as it traditionally used to do with democratic candidates.
Billionaire’s Luck
There is a saying in the Casino that every beginner has luck on his side and then it moves on. It is advised that a gambler should quit when luck is still on his/her side.
Billionaires are ordinary people with talent to find extra-ordinary people.
Once I was talking to a billionaire about a legal matter. He told me something I had never heard or read before. An admission of luck. He waved his fingers on forehead and said “We have luck on our side. You have studied law and all these books you know your job. We know nothing but we know whom to hire for doing the job.”
That billionaire had no confusion. He knew his luck alone would not work. He needed right people to make the luck work for him.
Jeff Bezos had the same luck in finding right people for Amazon. But he confused his luck with personal genius. He believed he could replicate success anywhere without the same talent around him.
Jeff Bezos has wrong belief that he can turn any business around. He was lucky when he created Amazon. He had first mover advantage. His luck made him hire right people. Luck has run its course.
Amazon is in decline as analyzed in part 1 of this article. That was too big to personally handle. Washington Post is also in decline, which is too small to ignore. It is classic management failure.
End of story.
References:
- Jeff Bezos brought down Washington Post: https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/how-jeff-bezos-brought-down-the-washington-post
- New Opinion Editor: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/11/media/washington-post-opinion-editor-bezos
- Free markets and liberties: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y44gw5gpro