Have been thinking the same and my immediate brainstorm on this included
-Abigail Disney
-Melinda Gates
-MacKenzie formerly-Bezos*
-one of the younger Waltons
Also: MacKenzie Bezos* is a PUBLISHED NOVELIST! So I would appreciate the poetic justice of her using whatever money she got in the Bezos divorce to stand up a dynamite new Book Review pub
*Edit: just confirmed that she goes by MacKenzie Scott now
It would be sweet irony if MacKenzie and Melinda teamed up to start a newspaper here, and published the full, warts and all, version of the Epstein files.
As far as I know (from usually reliable sources), tech journo Kara Swisher is still actively working to form an investor group to buy the former WaPo. 'Course, The Jeff hasn't made any noises publicly about selling --- yet. Apparently more advantageous politically and financially (for his other business interests) to say he continues to own something with The Washington Post masthead, whatever it actually is.
Read the Boston Globe, as I do. John Henry’s wife publishing, and keeps all the western-state dance reviews and even criticism of the Red Sox, the investment that brought him to town.
I do too. I lived in Boston for five years as a young adult and loved it, loved reading the Globe back then. I switched to subscribing to it once more a few months back when I could no longer tolerate the new Washington Post.
If I was a billionaire, I would, but alas, I'm not. I know he's retired, but Warren Buffett was a big believer and investor in newspapers back in the day, owning several regionals. He was very close with Katherine Graham, who helped introduce him to society.
The prime candidate (Bill Gates) is in the Epstein files. Maybe Richard Branson? Maybe the IKEA guy? But it seems doubtful they would go out of their way to run a newspaper in the US.
Someone with a love for journalism and a bit of money should start the post-Washington-Post. Hire everyone dismissed. We can even retitle the famous Sousa March to the name of the new paper. I will gladly subscribe and I bet a lot of people in the DMV would do so as well, if only just to stick it to Bezos.
“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape."
---- Matt Murray, Executive Editor of the newspaper formerly known as The Washington Post
Hey Matt, how about reporting the news with journalistic integrity --- without fear or favor. Seems to me that's more "essential" today than how to repurpose plastic wrap or whatever else you and the so-called "brain trust" have in mind as essentials.
We canceled this morning after 40 years. The main reason we were holding on was Sports. This is the message they sent in the cancelation confirmation email (all caps added): "We hope you’ll reconsider the value of the necessary and important work our journalists do to keep citizens informed. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS CHANGED ABOUT THAT. In fact, it’s more important than ever." Amazingly, no laugh emojis were included. Would be a nice FU if MacKenzie Scott were to pick up the ex-Posters and start something new.
I got that message, too. I replied, "Yes, comprehensive, trustworthy coverage is very important which is why I am dumping the Post but continuing to pay the WSJ, NYT and the Boston Globe which will be providing it."
I was going to ask about if they were refunding annual subscriptions since this sounds like a violation of the terms of contract to provide a fully staffed newspaper with full coverage in return for your money. I quit WaPo about a year ago, myself.
“Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, thank you for your years here at The Daily Planet, but we no longer need you. Our owner, Lex Luthor, has decided we are spending too much time and copy on “Truth and Justice,” and not enough on “The American Way.” Your severance is in the envelope, a $25 Amazon gift card.”
This will probably do it for me. I stayed with the Post through the Harris debacle, through Bezos’s sycophancy, but now, what’s the point? I now live in Los Angeles, so expanded local coverage doesn’t work, even if I do consider the Post my hometown paper. To get a picture of what the Post will become, all I need to do is pick up the LA Times. On weekdays, it’s nearly transparent; weekend editions aren’t much better.
My subscription runs out at the end of the month, and I have blocked renewal. I just wish Bezos had a touch of humanity, but he doesn't. Nothing like destroying a fine product, but that seems to be par for the course for Techbros.
The Washington Post is now the Washington Ghost. It is a phantom image of a real paper. It has been dying for a long time, the way old people in nursing homes slowly but inevitably decline until they actually die. Bozos did this and we should never let him live it down. At the same time, Trump has shut down the Kennedy Center for two years. DC is going to be a gloomy place.
It’s just been one long extended heartbreak for the past few years. I grew up sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper version of the Post: flipping through the magazine, chuckling and learning joke structure through your humor pieces, learning how to evaluate world news stories through the hard-hitting global reporting, learning about books and criticism through the Books section, reading KidsPost and then eventually growing out of it, then following the lively, meticulous, and wide-ranging data journalism (Meghan Hoyer, Andrew Ba Tran, Andrew Van Dam) as an adult as I build a career in statistics and data science… on and on. Every phase of my life has had the Post in the background somehow.
I sincerely hope a “good millionaire” (Abigail Disney? Mackenzie formerly-Bezos? Melinda Gates? One of the Waltons?) funds a new enterprise that these talented and good writers can move to next. I don’t know what the other solutions would be. Just so sad.
I can’t figure out why Bezos doesn’t just sell the Post or give it away. It loses money. He has destroyed its credibility. It no longer serves as a vanity piece that he can point to. One of those billionaires you mentioned could establish a nonprofit and begin to rebuild its reputation. (Same for LA Times.) We need strong bicoastal news gathering.
Why does Bezos keep the post? Same reason he bankrolled the Melania project despite the loss. If using the name of The Washington Post to curry favor with the regime gets his contracts greenlighted, environmental regulations lifted, unionization declared domestic terrorism, etc, the millions he loses in publishing a paper with no subscribers are easily recouped.
You are generous. I raise money for a living for a green group you have heard of and this tactic gave me the willies. Yes, ask for as much as a person can comfortably give but don't discourage smaller donors. Tens of thousands of small gifts adds up to big bucks as every NPO will tell you.
I regularly get solicitations from politicians who say they want numbers as well as funding, so if you can just give $20 that's a help - or $15 or $25, etc. - but the trend from what I've seen with new Democrat candidates seems to be to ask small, with people then giving far more, and my impression is that works very well for them.
And add me to the list of people who have cancelled their subscriptions. Mine was about to end anyway so all it took was a few clicks. I am hearing anecdotal reports that if you call the Post to cancel they say you can't until the subscription ends. I don't think that is legal.
It doesn't sound legal to me either. They are breaking their end of the contract inherent in a subscription and not delivering the product they were originally offering at the time a customer signed up.
Isn’t there some left-leaning billionaire who could create a new Washington paper and hire all of these brilliant Post refugees?
Have been thinking the same and my immediate brainstorm on this included
-Abigail Disney
-Melinda Gates
-MacKenzie formerly-Bezos*
-one of the younger Waltons
Also: MacKenzie Bezos* is a PUBLISHED NOVELIST! So I would appreciate the poetic justice of her using whatever money she got in the Bezos divorce to stand up a dynamite new Book Review pub
*Edit: just confirmed that she goes by MacKenzie Scott now
It would be sweet irony if MacKenzie and Melinda teamed up to start a newspaper here, and published the full, warts and all, version of the Epstein files.
MacKenzie Scott - yes. And she should be able to buy it cheap now and build it up quickly while the talent is still freshly available.
As far as I know (from usually reliable sources), tech journo Kara Swisher is still actively working to form an investor group to buy the former WaPo. 'Course, The Jeff hasn't made any noises publicly about selling --- yet. Apparently more advantageous politically and financially (for his other business interests) to say he continues to own something with The Washington Post masthead, whatever it actually is.
She donated generously to the GoFundMe.
Read the Boston Globe, as I do. John Henry’s wife publishing, and keeps all the western-state dance reviews and even criticism of the Red Sox, the investment that brought him to town.
I do too. I lived in Boston for five years as a young adult and loved it, loved reading the Globe back then. I switched to subscribing to it once more a few months back when I could no longer tolerate the new Washington Post.
If I was a billionaire, I would, but alas, I'm not. I know he's retired, but Warren Buffett was a big believer and investor in newspapers back in the day, owning several regionals. He was very close with Katherine Graham, who helped introduce him to society.
Soros? Pope Leo?
The prime candidate (Bill Gates) is in the Epstein files. Maybe Richard Branson? Maybe the IKEA guy? But it seems doubtful they would go out of their way to run a newspaper in the US.
I think I remember that Branson is in the Epstein files, too. And I don't think he'd be a good fit anyway.
I knew you were going to have a good take on this story, and you did not disappoint
Thanks, man.
Polled to be coping. Work very hard to avoid depression. Too debilitating.
I am so sorry for our loss of a great newspaper, and for the damage to the great employees.
Nobody suspected “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was actually an edict to throw bricks at streetlights.
It was an order to turn out the lights.
Democracy? We don’t need no stinking democracy!
Someone with a love for journalism and a bit of money should start the post-Washington-Post. Hire everyone dismissed. We can even retitle the famous Sousa March to the name of the new paper. I will gladly subscribe and I bet a lot of people in the DMV would do so as well, if only just to stick it to Bezos.
They could call it the Post Post.
“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape."
---- Matt Murray, Executive Editor of the newspaper formerly known as The Washington Post
Hey Matt, how about reporting the news with journalistic integrity --- without fear or favor. Seems to me that's more "essential" today than how to repurpose plastic wrap or whatever else you and the so-called "brain trust" have in mind as essentials.
If Matt Murray, Will Lewis came anywhere near integrity they would burst into flames.
In the same way USA Today is essential to people's lives?
We canceled this morning after 40 years. The main reason we were holding on was Sports. This is the message they sent in the cancelation confirmation email (all caps added): "We hope you’ll reconsider the value of the necessary and important work our journalists do to keep citizens informed. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS CHANGED ABOUT THAT. In fact, it’s more important than ever." Amazingly, no laugh emojis were included. Would be a nice FU if MacKenzie Scott were to pick up the ex-Posters and start something new.
I got that message, too. I replied, "Yes, comprehensive, trustworthy coverage is very important which is why I am dumping the Post but continuing to pay the WSJ, NYT and the Boston Globe which will be providing it."
I was going to ask about if they were refunding annual subscriptions since this sounds like a violation of the terms of contract to provide a fully staffed newspaper with full coverage in return for your money. I quit WaPo about a year ago, myself.
“Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson, thank you for your years here at The Daily Planet, but we no longer need you. Our owner, Lex Luthor, has decided we are spending too much time and copy on “Truth and Justice,” and not enough on “The American Way.” Your severance is in the envelope, a $25 Amazon gift card.”
An appropriate denouement.
Oh, man. Could it be fucking worse? I mean, Ron Charles?
Exactly! The Friday Book Club newsletter is the highlight of my week. And I always read Ron's reviews first.
It once had the courage that most,
Could raise a glass to and toast,
But its legacy got sold,
For owner's gold,
And now it's The Washington Post Post.
The Washington Past.
This will probably do it for me. I stayed with the Post through the Harris debacle, through Bezos’s sycophancy, but now, what’s the point? I now live in Los Angeles, so expanded local coverage doesn’t work, even if I do consider the Post my hometown paper. To get a picture of what the Post will become, all I need to do is pick up the LA Times. On weekdays, it’s nearly transparent; weekend editions aren’t much better.
My subscription runs out at the end of the month, and I have blocked renewal. I just wish Bezos had a touch of humanity, but he doesn't. Nothing like destroying a fine product, but that seems to be par for the course for Techbros.
I'm about as depressed as possible, although this is hardly the only reason why.
The Washington Post is now the Washington Ghost. It is a phantom image of a real paper. It has been dying for a long time, the way old people in nursing homes slowly but inevitably decline until they actually die. Bozos did this and we should never let him live it down. At the same time, Trump has shut down the Kennedy Center for two years. DC is going to be a gloomy place.
It’s just been one long extended heartbreak for the past few years. I grew up sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper version of the Post: flipping through the magazine, chuckling and learning joke structure through your humor pieces, learning how to evaluate world news stories through the hard-hitting global reporting, learning about books and criticism through the Books section, reading KidsPost and then eventually growing out of it, then following the lively, meticulous, and wide-ranging data journalism (Meghan Hoyer, Andrew Ba Tran, Andrew Van Dam) as an adult as I build a career in statistics and data science… on and on. Every phase of my life has had the Post in the background somehow.
I sincerely hope a “good millionaire” (Abigail Disney? Mackenzie formerly-Bezos? Melinda Gates? One of the Waltons?) funds a new enterprise that these talented and good writers can move to next. I don’t know what the other solutions would be. Just so sad.
I can’t figure out why Bezos doesn’t just sell the Post or give it away. It loses money. He has destroyed its credibility. It no longer serves as a vanity piece that he can point to. One of those billionaires you mentioned could establish a nonprofit and begin to rebuild its reputation. (Same for LA Times.) We need strong bicoastal news gathering.
Why does Bezos keep the post? Same reason he bankrolled the Melania project despite the loss. If using the name of The Washington Post to curry favor with the regime gets his contracts greenlighted, environmental regulations lifted, unionization declared domestic terrorism, etc, the millions he loses in publishing a paper with no subscribers are easily recouped.
Possibly because his aim in buying it was to destroy it? Will he take on the NYT next?
I just donated to the GoFundMe. I have to say that suggesting a $750 donation is not a good tactic, however.
Wow. Apparently that figure goes up automatically, as the number of those donations rise.
So that's a good sign, that the suggested amount goes up as donations rise? $500 was suggested to me, and I gave it. Wish it could have been more.
You are generous. I raise money for a living for a green group you have heard of and this tactic gave me the willies. Yes, ask for as much as a person can comfortably give but don't discourage smaller donors. Tens of thousands of small gifts adds up to big bucks as every NPO will tell you.
I regularly get solicitations from politicians who say they want numbers as well as funding, so if you can just give $20 that's a help - or $15 or $25, etc. - but the trend from what I've seen with new Democrat candidates seems to be to ask small, with people then giving far more, and my impression is that works very well for them.
And add me to the list of people who have cancelled their subscriptions. Mine was about to end anyway so all it took was a few clicks. I am hearing anecdotal reports that if you call the Post to cancel they say you can't until the subscription ends. I don't think that is legal.
You can cancel but they don't give refunds. They just deliver until the sub runs out. Irritating, pointless, but not illegal.
Maybe people can contest the charge with their credit card issuer?
It doesn't sound legal to me either. They are breaking their end of the contract inherent in a subscription and not delivering the product they were originally offering at the time a customer signed up.
Holy mother of g*d. Deep despair; deep, deep condolences.