Insider view of Jeff Bezos' tenure at The Washington Post

Businessinsider writes that Jeff Bezos' ownership of The Washington Post was once celebrated but has soured, as employees and readers have reacted angrily to a series of recent cuts. When Bezos bought the paper in 2013 for $250 million, he invested heavily in technology, staff, political coverage, investigative work, and international reporting, and largely stayed out of day-to-day editorial decisions—moves that helped the Post become profitable in the first Trump era, according to Erik Wemple.

More recently the Post has reported steep losses—$77 million in 2023 and $100 million in 2024—and had expanded staff to about 1,100 in early 2021 before reductions. Declines in digital advertising and editorial choices, including the October 2024 decision not to endorse a presidential candidate that prompted a subscription desertion of hundreds of thousands, have deepened newsroom disaffection, and some see editor Matt Murray's language about writing "from one perspective" as coded and unsettling.

United States