Why is Jeff Bezos not helping the Washington Post? The newspaper's new economic difficulties are not entirely surprising

The Washington Post has announced a drastic downsizing of its newsroom: about three hundred journalists out of eight hundred have been laid off, along with numerous other employees. This is a very significant cut even by U.S. standards, where the possibility of losing a job practically overnight has historically been more common than elsewhere.

The newspaper's financial difficulties, after being purchased in 2013 by Jeff Bezos, are not new and reflect problems common to much of the media industry, which has been hit for years by declining advertising revenues and an increasingly saturated subscription market. However, according to many observers, structural causes were compounded by clumsy decisions from Bezos, which made the situation irrecoverable, marking the definitive decline of one of the most influential newspapers in the world.

One of the most cited examples demonstrating that Bezos had no intention of financially supporting and saving the Washington Post, thus avoiding staff cuts, is the huge funding Amazon provided to produce and distribute the documentary on Melania Trump. The company paid approximately $40 million to acquire the rights to the work, and a further $35 million to promote it, despite it being evident that a product of this kind could never have generated enough revenue to even break even.

As most critics argue, the operation likely falls within a broader strategy aimed at currying favor with the Trump administration. In light of these factors, statements justifying the staff cuts as necessary for the relaunch of the Washington Post seem unconvincing: it rather appears to be a deliberate choice to weaken the newspaper's profile, making it less influential editorially, with the goal of protecting the economic and political interests of its owner.

Where the Washington Post crisis comes from and why Bezos is involved

During Trump’s first term, the Washington Post took a very critical and combative stance, managing in this way to gain many readers - capturing much of the progressive audience dissatisfied with the Republican administration. Between 2016 and 2020, this position led to a strong increase in subscriptions and positive balances. After that political phase ended, the newspaper's growth stalled, probably because the potential reader base had essentially been reached. Starting in 2023, however, Bezos’s approach toward the Washington Post became more interventionist. In particular, there was an explicit demand to revise the paper's stance toward Trump, with a change in editorial line that surprised many, both inside and outside the newsroom. This move greatly affected the newspaper’s credibility, long considered progressive and highly independent.

The breaking point came in the fall of 2024, when the newspaper’s ownership blocked the publication of the traditional presidential endorsement. The newsroom had prepared a supportive article on Kamala Harris, but the piece was never published: the decision triggered a wave of subscription cancellations, in the hundreds of thousands, and marked a further distancing of the newspaper from a significant portion of its historic audience.

But it didn’t stop there: a deep reorganization of the Opinions section, traditionally independent from the rest of the newsroom, was announced, favoring a shift toward positions more conciliatory toward the Trump administration. This was compounded by other controversial episodes, such as Bezos’s media silence when the FBI searched the home of the famous Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson, a rather rare occurrence in the U.S. context, which fueled further doubts about the newspaper’s editorial independence.

Bezos had the capital to save the Washington Post

Many critics note that the layoffs at the Washington Post do not fully respond to a real financial emergency on the publisher’s part. The newspaper’s losses are significant but limited compared to Jeff Bezos’s personal resources: in 2023 the newspaper closed with a deficit of about 77 million dollars, rising to about 100 million in 2024. Numbers relevant for a publishing company, but negligible for an entrepreneur with a net worth around 245 billion dollars. To cover the newspaper’s annual losses, Bezos would need only a very small fraction of his annual income, equivalent to a few days’ work - or even less. To give perspective, when Bezos bought the Washington Post just over ten years ago, he paid 250 million dollars, half of what he spent on his yacht over 120 meters long.

Essentially, most experts argue that the downsizing of the Washington Post was not imposed by the company’s finances, but represents a deliberate move by Bezos, aimed at reducing the ambition and political weight of a progressive newspaper that in the past played a decisive role in U.S. public debate, as shown by the famous investigation into the Watergate scandal - which in the 1970s led to the resignation of then-U.S. President Richard Nixon.

Moreover, when comparing the Washington Post with the New York Times, historically its main competitor, it becomes evident that there were concrete alternatives to staff cuts: a few years ago, the Times emerged from an equally deep crisis by decisively investing in its newsroom and journalistic approach, showing that when there is a serious and ambitious editorial strategy, readers reward it.