Why will the Washington Post be different during Trump’s second term?
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As Trump’s inauguration looms, the paper, owned by Jeff Bezos, is in shambles – largely of its own making. As Donald Trump prepares to take office on 20 January, the ascension of a man who has repeatedly said he will persecute the media surely calls for the journalistic muscle of a newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal and has for decades been a mainstay of American political reporting.
But as Trump’s second term looms, the Washington Post, owned by the billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, is in shambles – mired in chaos and disarray largely of its own making. Over the past three months, the Post has lost 250,000 subscribers, after Bezos reportedly blocked the newspaper from endorsing Kamala Harris and has seen its star writers flee to rivals. It is preparing to lay off dozens of employees, a little over a year after laying off 10% of its workers.
Later this month, Will Lewis, the Post’s divisive British CEO and a former Rupert Murdoch protege, is likely to have his name dragged into a historic phone-hacking trial in the UK, as Prince Harry’s long-standing lawsuit against Murdoch’s British newspapers goes to court.
Against that backdrop, it is Bezos who has borne most of the criticism: for seemingly cozying up to Trump, while involving himself more and more in the Post’s editorial decisions. Bezos, whose Blue Origin space company has a contract worth billions of dollars with the US government (Amazon also has government contracts) – has defended the decision to cut the pro-Harris editorial. But his decision to give $1m to Trump’s inauguration through Amazon, and the fact that he recently dined with the president-elect at the private members’ club Trump calls home, have led to fears about whether the Post’s staff could find their political reporting ability compromised.
