Jeff Bezos wants Washington Post’s newsroom budget halved, productivity doubled
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Journalism is, I imagine, much like programming: a lot of the words are "boilerplate" and cheap to produce, but those aren't the important parts of a story. Some of the words require a lot of work. Getting a direct quote from a relevant person. Doing the deep research to expose a claim as false instead of blindly parroting it. Getting multiple sources to voice contrasting views on a topic. Fact checking an article before publication.
I worry that whatever their definition of "productivity" is, it ignores these important yet time consuming aspects, and as such, what looks like "increased productivity" in their metrics is really just a decrease in quality.
It's just like "To Serve Man".
They would be alike if the book title had been "If Mankind isn't at the Table, Mankind is on the Menu"
You don't even "might understand" this, because you're intelligent enough to grasp that its profitability as a newspaper was never a factor in Bezos' desire to purchase the WP.
Edit: The consideration being that perhaps billionaire toys need not be profitable per se, but are purchased for different reasons. Twitter is another example here.
In that light an arbitrary but vaguely plausible reason to fire anyone who insists on doing actual journalism and not billionaire propaganda is a useful tool.
It's not like he will make it profitable anyway.
It did well by documentary standards, poorly compared to its budget, and the stories about empty theaters are mostly in areas with very weak Trump support. Those stories spread mainly because they makes us feel good.
Yes, Jeff and his companies keep making idealistic, pro-social statements. Unfortunately, such statements are little more than socially mandated lies. Which millions of people really want to believe - so be cautious about calling them out.
One of the big lessons of the last decade is that media can have billionaires as their primary market. The Free Press got huge because of infusions of cash from the rich. Media that flatters the opinions of billionaires and projects their propaganda into the world can be enormously valuable even if it isn't making traditional cash. It is a return to a patronage model.
Garry Tan has even said this expressly. That the rich should simply own their own parallel media so they can project their will against the will of the people.
Hearst used his newspapers to manipulate the American public into war against the Spanish Empire.
Government lies (babies in incubators, yellow cake...) were used to push two Iraq wars on the American public by the media.
The abnormal thing is that we had maybe 10-15 years where the press put up at least a pretense of acting impartial as power shifted from pineapple and arms companies to tech monopolies.
I think the bigger change is that wealth is continuing to concentrate. The more wealth accrues under a few hands the more these people are able to exploit disproportionate control over the information environment.
Maybe if we halved his budget he could be twice as productive too. Could you imagine? We could call it financial intermittent fasting
I also wonder how much having his name attached to the thing is responsible for the awful balance sheet ca 2024. It may never turn a profit as long as it's a known Bezos operation.
Not gains for the Post itself though, but for its owner, for example in regulatory capture.
Those can be computed pretty precisely or estimated. How is this income generation not then inputted to the owner as income?
It is said that the USSR failed because of incorrect accounting. Let's not let the Land of the Free fail in the same way!
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/jeff-bezos-washingt...
Sort of like Moore's Law. If he can do that every 18 months then in a few decades the newsroom will really fly! News flash: it doesn't work like that. :(
You buy a newspaper because you're rich and you want your opinions disseminated. Not because you think you'll make money. So the number of potential buyers is really small.
Bezos is literally just showing his incompetence at this point in running a paper, and the NYT is probably loving it. Sure billionaires can buy social networks and papers, but people can also subscribe to and use things not owned by billionaires.
[1] https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-sad-and-self-inflicted-decl...
It's the economy, s.....
AI oh,
It’s off to work we (used to) go.
double productivity
4 x 'value'
so he wants AI written slop
i hope this ends badly
Public opinion is shaped by social media.
Maybe the subscribers of the Post? They (reportedly) left in droves after Bezos interfered to stop the opinion board from endorsing a candidate and more recently fired nearly all international reporters. (including those in warzones)
He owns the paper and can do what he wants within the bounds of the law, but anyone is also free to criticize the decisions he makes, and subscribers are free to unsubscribe.
Criticism is about what someone ought to do, not what they can do. (these are very different)
So the shareholders of Amazon are happy. He did the right thing.
Was it moral or good for the American republic? Again, he is not an elected official so it doesn’t matter. We opted to give him so much unchecked power.
Not sure where you have gotten this idea that morality or "doing the right thing" only applies to elected officials. The choices people make can be criticized even if those choices were legal or beneficial for their investors.
Destroying the credibility of a leading newspaper for some lucrative government contracts seems to be a net loss for society, but hey, at least Amazon's investors are happy and Bezos' tremendously unprofitable space company has some more cash.