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Charlotte Klein at New York magazine unloaded the terrible financial news at The Washington Post: “Even before 250,000 digital readers unsubscribed from the Washington Post in protest, the paper was on track to lose at least as much money as it lost last year: $77 million.” Isn’t that chump change for billionaire owner Jeff Bezos? It certainly gives him a reason to push changes, which she calls a “crackdown.”

“Mind-blowing,” as one staffer put it. “The level of anger is through the roof, and fear is also through the roof. There’s huge concern that Bezos is going to pull the plug.”

That’s unlikely, Klein suggests, but Bezos “and his already controversial publisher pick, Will Lewis — seems determined to fix the paper, whether the current staff likes it or not.”

Interim executive editor Matt Murray and managing editor Matea Gold are the two internal candidates for the executive editor job. The search is “expected to conclude by the end of the year.”  Klein claims the Post staff are mixed on Murray:

He came in and instantly seemed more engaged in the journalism than [Sally] Buzbee—talkative in news meetings, shooting notes about headlines—which was a big and welcome change. But several staffers told me he was, frustratingly to them, a company man during the endorsement mess, telling staff in a meeting that he didn’t know how many subscribers were lost and to buck up for the changes ahead. “Completely the wrong message,” one staffer said. “The message should be we’re not doing anything different journalistically, and I’m going to be out there defending you guys.” The newsroom was looking for someone to rally around—as they have been since Marty Baron left—and Murray instead, in their view, stuck close to the boss.

The Post rank and file wants to go to war again on Trump, and never mind Baron lamely claiming they weren’t at war. If you read the paper, you see the daily aggression. No one should tell them to put down their axes. 

The boss also angered people by demanding staffers must return to the office full-time by June 2025. That’s five years after the pandemic hit its stride. One anonymous grumbler told Klein the new office policy “felt punitive…like a response to the outcry to them driving us in the ditch with that lack of endorsement. And if that wasn’t the intention, then they certainly missed the boat on the optics of that, too.” 

“These aren’t changes that will help us compete in the 21st century,” one staffer said, recalling how Lewis, who dared to tell the newsroom that “people are not reading your stuff” and that their “audience has halved in recent years” back in June. “He has not asked for a single change that in any way seems designed to improve our business plan,” the staffer claimed, and instead “has contempt and derision for the newsroom.”

With employees being told they must be back in the office five days a week (hankies out), “some of the Post‘s most marketable journalists are looking to get ahead of that, seeking out opportunities at other outlets even as the grind of the new Trump administration begins.”