"The Bad People Are Bad" Is a Bad Business

Cheerleading Dies in Darkness at the Washington Post

Okay, more of a culture/politics observation piece than a sports media post, brought about by the Washington Post not endorsing a presidential candidate in 2024. Literally no voter in America was waiting on WaPo’s editorial endorsement before making a decision and yet this abstention, directed from on high by Jeff Bezos, was Friday’s big media story. Many a journalist is sarcastically repeating WaPo’s self serious Trump era slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

As I write this, WaPo staffers are publicly lashing out at their bosses in public comments and anonymous leaks to other publications. That appears to be standard practice for WaPo in recent years. This is another chapter in an ongoing crackup at the paper, rooted in new management preferring a less ideologically driven product. The chasm between directive and staff has highlighted a particularly interesting debate, in my opinion.

Wesley Yang, who’s in the heterodox space or whatever we call it, is pointing out that many formerly thriving publications have died while pushing a narrow ideology that seemed popular on Twitter. Eric Levitz, a writer at prestige publications, is articulating a reasonable rebuttal: Almost every media property dies nowadays due to technological conditions. And, to be fair to the Levitz perspective, it’s not just social justicey publications that are suffering right now. Conservative entities are feeling the pinch.

The New York Times lives pretty large, but they had first mover advantage to the subscription model plus they generate much of their profit off games and recipes. Nobody seems to know how to make these other at scale publications work. And yet…I think I agree with Yang?

This is one of the central modern questions in media. And by “media,” I don’t just mean journalism. I’m also talking about movies, TV shows, pretty much any at scale entertainment operation. I’ve argued and discussed the question a lot with Hollywood Writer Man Matt Klinman (We jokingly call it the “Wokeness vs. Brokeness” debate). When looking at the decline of media, he opts for structural. I acknowledge those structural elements, but think there’s an ideological component to the fall. Conformity is cringe. “Read the room” is boring.

For example, on the day after the Biden debate debacle, I was curious about Washington gossip. Biden’s live TV collapse quickly became a huge story, with tales of “panic” and possible presidential replacements echoing across the news. Politico moved on the story immediately, as did other national level publishers.

This was a moment of great intrigue, one the storied institution located in our nation’s capitol might have offered uncommon insight on. And, a day later, this was the Washington Post headline.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This was the biggest news story of the summer, if not the year. It was the road fork moment in the Democratic Party, the moment they were finally compelled to push Joe out in favor of (eventually) Kamala Harris. But if you went to WaPo after it happened, you’d have struggled to find information on the explosive situation. This was their post-debate Politics section.

This was insane to me. The paper of record in Washington D.C. was actively playing defense against you knowing about the biggest story in politics.

Some of you media nerds might have been following the above referenced power struggle at the Washington Post, in part because it has been playing out in public. Jeff Bezos’ paper tried to reform a failing operation, but the journalists currently there refused to play along. A new editor was brought on to change the paper’s coverage, but those plans were aborted after the newsroom revolted. From the Daily Beast:

“It is with regret that I share with you that Robert Winnett has withdrawn from the position of Editor at The Washington Post,” the paper’s embattled CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, told staffers in an email obtained by The Daily Beast. “Rob has my greatest respect and is an incredibly talented editor and journalist.”

Winnett was overtly targeted by the WaPo staff for this ouster. After he was named Executive Editor, the paper did a quadruple byline exposé of their new boss, accusing him of ethical violations at his past job.

Based on WaPo staff behavior on Twitter/X it seemed like many employees were angry about the ouster of former Executive Editor Sally Buzbee. They did not take kindly to CEO Will Lewis informing them of why the Washington Post needed a shakeup:

At one point Lewis was asked whether he was intentionally bringing in people who come from a different culture than the Post. “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. “So I’ve had to take decisive, urgent action to set us on a different path, sourcing talent that I have worked with that are the best of the best.”

It seems Lewis was asked by staff less about what was actually going wrong at the Washington Post and more questions like the following:

Later in the meeting, another reporter asked Lewis whether “any women or people of color were interviewed and seriously considered for either of these positions,” a question that prompted applause.

The proposed new leadership at WaPo hailed from the Wall Street Journal, which is a fairly mainstream perspective in my view, but in some parts of journoland, is regarded as frighteningly conservative. Or, as Drew Magary puts it:

Not only are all three of these men as white as a block of Monterey Jack, they also happen to have deep roots in upscale conservative media. Lewis and Murray both did long stints with Rupert Murdoch, with Lewis running News Corp’s Dow Jones and Murray coming over from the Wall Street Journal.

Apparently it’s notably bad that these hires are White Men, so says White Man Drew Magary, who isn’t giving up his job anytime soon. Beyond that DEI diversion, here’s the issue: Whether the WaPo’s rebrand is headed by good or bad people, the paper really was hemorrhaging readership and money. That’s not disputable. The question is “why” and whether a conformist ideology has something to do with the famous paper’s steep decline. Many professional journalists, some of them quite skilled, insist that ideology is wholly unrelated to financial outcome.

Here’s where Max is wrong: The Washington Post sucks. They’ve got an esteemed sports section, but beyond that…not great!

I don’t feel good saying that. When I’ve said it, I’ve gotten unhappy messages from WaPo staffers, and some of them are talented individuals. But this is simply how I see it. The paper has far better cachet than product. And yes, there appears to be an ideology issue here, one that management is starting to take great pains to confront.

You know how the NYT has an important food section? Not so much for WaPo. And why is that? Look, I’d like to maintain my good standing with media peers and simply blame “structural problems,” but I’m reminded of the paper’s actual content style regarding cuisine. For instance, a WaPo profile titled “Soleil Ho is a young, queer woman of color who wants to redefine food criticism” reads like a parody that nobody involved is allowed to find funny.

Will she continue podcasting for the Chronicle now that her popular podcast, “The Racist Sandwich,” which explored issues of culinary appropriation and representation, is on hiatus? Yes, and she’s starting a newsletter, too — called “Bite Curious,” a wink at her queer identity.

In the article, Soleil announces to an audience that a scoring system is like, totally over.

How will she approach the job? By writing about restaurants that tell a story —one that might touch on race, gender, class or the culture of the Bay Area. By following a strict ethical code, even though her appearance won’t be a secret. By eliminating the star system in favor of a more nuanced analysis. “Wait,” asked publicist and restaurant owner Jen Pelka, from the audience. “You’re saying you’re not doing stars?”

The room broke into a round of applause, as if to say, we’re so glad Soleil Ho is here.

This was just one example I stumbled upon when writing about WaPo’s ridiculous pizza war against Barstool sports proprietor Dave Portnoy. I could pull others, but you get the idea, and can see evidence of what I’m suggesting all over the Internet today as the staffers rage at their own publication.

I’m sorry, but you can’t make an often terribly stupid product and then blame “structure” or “economics” when nobody wants it. If we’re talking “structure” then what about all the structural advantages WaPo has? How many publications are better known? How many have Jeff Bezos backing them up?

Today, we see a very loud group performatively cancelling their Washington Post subscriptions because the paper is eschewing formal presidential endorsements. Perhaps it’s a lot of people, and perhaps it isn’t, but the paper has been leaking audience for years while trying to make this exact cohort happy.

Other publications are treating this non endorsement as a real scandal. The actual scandal, in my opinion, is also a contributing factor in why the paper has struggled to maintain an audience: The staffers wholly rejected objectivity in favor of cheerleading for one side. They got entirely too ideological while interpreting Donald Trump’s norm-breaking as permission to lack standards themselves. And they did it to such a degree that they pretended away the current president’s senility up until the very moment it became impossible to deny.

Now that is a media scandal, a massive one that inspires yet less trust from the public towards the press. These actions, or abdications really, not only failed to serve the consumer good and the public good, but I’d argue they backfired, hurting the Democratic party. A lack of sane media pressure led to a situation where the party procrastinated its way into a sloppy presidential campaign speed run.

Bezos wants to return to a time when the newspaper represented neutrality, if not in reality then at least in brand. The idea, I’m guessing, is that you get to vigorously investigate Donald Trump, but not lose credibility in your venture by trumpeting your all consuming bias against him. This should be a feasible aim, but it’s difficult to get this message through to journalists who simply reject the premise of having a “bias” against a person and party they regard as objectively evil.

Fair enough, let’s say they’re correct about Trump. He’s bad, authoritarian, etc. You’ve still got to do the job while he exists. They’ve proven they can’t, apparently. They’ve demonstrated that, when the other team’s president becomes incapable of performing his basic duties, they’ll be the last to admit what everyone else can plainly see. That inability to call balls and strikes has hurt the paper as a product. It’s also sacrificed its social capital. The Washington Post doesn’t need yet another editorial endorsement. It needs an ability to describe reality divorced from what its current staffers want.