Bezos Declares New Era at Washington Post

Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, released an op-ed in that paper Monday announcing a change in the publication’s strategy. Bezos argued that the decline of public trust in journalism demonstrated that the current news model was fundamentally inadequate, saying,

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

This failure, Bezos asserted, is a threat to the fabric of society. Instead of trusting news sources like the Post, they turn to “off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions.” Instead, journalism needs to find a new model capable of speaking to and being trusted by all of society. His instruction not to endorse any candidate for president—a decision that provoked a revolt in the newsroom, resignations from various staff members, and a mass cancellation of subscriptions by angry readers—was a part of this process of change, which he justified by noting that the newspaper had declined to endorse candidates from 1933 to 1946.

As a result, Bezos said, there would be further changes at the Post. “To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles,” he wrote. “Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions.”

The decision appears to be part of a sustained campaign from Bezos, who earlier this year hired Will Lewis, the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, to serve as CEO of the company despite staff objections. Reports are also circulating that Bezos has instructed the Washington Post to hire more conservative opinion columnists. These moves are all consistent with a desire to push the paper more towards a position in the political center and reduce perceptions of bias in the publication’s reporting.

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