Full confession: This editor has not yet read Fox News watchdog Brian Stelter's piece in The Atlantic about the "real story" about what's going on at the Washington Post. He's guessing that the problem is with the new management. As we reported earlier this month, Washington Post CEO and publisher William Lewis held an all-hands meeting in which he told reporters, "People are not reading your stuff." Readership was down 50 percent, and the paper lost $77 million in 2023.
The reporters' response? Politics reporter Ashley Parker reportedly challenged Lewis’s decision-making, earning applause from her colleagues after saying, “Now we have four white men running the newsroom."
Before we look into Stelter's piece, he's a fun post from Post technical writer Taylor Lorenz responding to Briahna Joy Gray's query if any newspapers were looking into the shocking story of the Israelis training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.
Much as @TaylorLorenz would like to pretend this is true, there is no legitimate journalist who is reporting this. “It’s been a major topic of discussion on X all day” because this app is a cesspool of antisemitic conspiracy theories, you idiot. pic.twitter.com/tMc5mwGh19
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) June 25, 2024
Did Lorenz investigate the claims? Did any of her colleagues?
Anyway, let's hear what Stelter has to say:
If you want to understand the current crisis at The Washington Post—the still-unfolding ethical scandal threatening the reign of its publisher and CEO, the growing newsroom revolt, the tumult and uncertainty about the paper’s future—you have to start with the previous crisis, just 18 months ago, which led to Will Lewis’s appointment as CEO. It was the end of 2022, and, like today, the Post was in desperate need of an intervention.
Web traffic was plunging. Subscription levels were falling steeply as well, and digital-ad revenues were slipping. Beloved sections of the Post—Outlook, the Sunday magazine—were being shut down to cut costs. Washington’s paper of record was on track to lose money for the first time in years.
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So the problem is Lewis and Post owner Jeff Bezos — The Atlantic's subhead reads, "How the world’s greatest businessman drove his newspaper into a ditch."
Christopher Rufo has a different explanation of the Post's problems:
This @BrianStelter story about the failure of the Washington Post does not mention the name Lorenz, Rubin, Bump, or Kessler even a single time. The reason the paper is failing is not Bezos; it's the masthead, which is stocked with writers who have driven the quality into a ditch. pic.twitter.com/djI7bH3wsC
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024
Don't forget Boot!
— Charles Zim (@Charles_Zim) June 27, 2024
Yes, yes, can't forget MAX BOOT
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024
Of all the people they laid off, they kept Lorenz. What does she even do there?
Many critics have compared Mr. Stelter to a potato. But I'm beginning to think this is unfair—to the potato.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024
The only good thing about a Brian Stelter article is we don’t have to hear his grating voice.
— Ancient Philosophy🦉 (@AncPhi) June 27, 2024
Fair point
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024
"Lorenz, Rubin, Bump, Kessler" AND Attiah. Hamas-supporting Karen Attiah has had her hand in the destruction of the integrity of the WaPo for over a decade now.
— Shane Hensinger 🇺🇸🌐🇺🇦 (@CaliforniaFirst) June 27, 2024
Brian Stelter writing this article, is hilarious.
— Jay Trott (@trottskyathome) June 27, 2024
Even entertaining Stelter as a contributor is emblematic of that paper — and journalism broadly — driving headlong into the ditch.
— Ben Bolton (@boltondynamics) June 27, 2024
Wait, Weebles is "writing" for The Atlantic?
— JWF (@JammieWF) June 27, 2024
Obviously, these human punchlines are never going to figure it out.
If we are looking to Stelter to delve into the trials and tribulations of present day media, when he was a willful participant in all of its deception, we are irredeemable.
— DavidNY🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@DavidNY182) June 27, 2024
I would have thought readers would be lining up at newsstands to read about the evils of cisheteropatriarchalcapitalism.
— Patrick Rheaume (@patrickgrheaume) June 27, 2024
"Democracy Dies in Demagoguery"
— Usually Right (@normouspenis) June 27, 2024
Lost me as soon I saw Stelter claiming it's the REAL story.
— Brian Herold (@AgCat93) June 27, 2024
It ain't.
Was Brian weeping to himself when he wrote this?
— Yo Huckleberry (@huckleberry_yo) June 27, 2024
But Stelter has the same values & politics as those "journalists" you mentioned. But it cannot be that. #Objective
— Hunky Russian Bot #TrudeauMustGo (@jmdrebit) June 27, 2024
Yeah but bezos continues to employ these dunces, so the buck does ultimately stop with him.
— Chrysippus (@asymptoticaxiom) June 27, 2024
That is true, but Stelter doesn't even consider the actual writing.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024
It couldn't be that the Washington Post even fails as a local newspaper for the D.C. area. Bezos is ultimately to blame for not cleaning house and starting from scratch with real journalists. This is a paper that considers Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot to be conservative voices.
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