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Is Bezos’s new editorial mission for The Washington Post already bombing? [1]

['Rick Edmonds', 'Angela Fu', 'Tom Jones', 'Ren Laforme', 'Rick Edmonds Is Media Business Analyst For The Poynter Institute Where He Has Done Research', 'Writing For The Last Fifteen Years. His Commentary On', 'Angela Fu Is A Reporter For Poynter. She Can Be Reached At Afu Poynter.Org Or On Twitter', 'Tom Jones Is Poynter S Senior Media Writer For Poynter.Org. He Was Previously Part Of The Tampa Bay Times Family During Three Stints Over Some', "Ren Laforme Is The Managing Editor Of Poynter.Org. He Was Previously Poynter'S Digital Tools Reporter", 'Chronicling Tools']

Date: 2025-03-04 12:30:28+00:00

Just two days after owner Jeff Bezos declared that Washington Post editorials would henceforth focus on “personal liberties and free markets,” the new way of doing things faced a tough stress test. It was an inauspicious debut.

The Oval Office blowup that ended with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy being shown the White House door was the sort of big and totally unexpected news that demanded comment. The Post responded later Friday in an editorial with some loosely linked on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand thoughts, faulting both President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy.

Nothing particularly impressive or offensive in the piece. The Wall Street Journal editorial and the Post’s foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius took a similar tack, slamming Trump but arguing that Zelenskyy got too combative.

What startled me was the headline: “In acrimonious meeting, Trump berates Zelenskyy.” Even with opinion editor David Shipley departed and the department’s editing ranks depleted, shouldn’t someone have noticed they were going with a news story headline on an opinion piece? That distinction seems like Journalism 101.

Also, as of Monday evening, the Post has run just two editorials in four days — a departure from its typical standard of at least one a day.

Most commentary on the Bezos manifesto has speculated on whether the personal freedom and free markets agenda is his own credo, a sop to Trump or some of both. I’m wondering now whether it will create an overly narrow set of boundaries for Post editorial writers in choosing topics and what to say.

Is there an echo here of an old Woody Allen joke? Two little old ladies at a nursing home are talking. “The food here is terrible,” one says. The other replies, “and such small portions.”

By media business analyst Rick Edmonds

Those changes aren’t going over well with subscribers

The Post has lost more than 75,000 subscribers in the wake of Bezos’ changes to its opinion pages, NPR reported Friday. The wave of cancellations follows a much larger one in October when Bezos spiked a planned endorsement for then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

The Post did grow its subscriber base by 400,000 in the interim — many at “highly discounted rates” — according to NPR, but the net effect of Bezos’ meddling is a loss of a “couple hundred thousand” subscribers.

Post journalists have also been jumping ship. Caroline Kitchener, who won a Pulitzer for her abortion coverage at the Post, became the latest, announcing Monday that she’s headed to The New York Times to cover the Trump administration’s impact on American families.

By media business reporter Angela Fu

More on Bezos and the Post

Legendary newspaper editor Martin Baron has a new piece out in The Atlantic: “Where Jeff Bezos Went Wrong With The Washington Post.” We hate to quote just one section from an important piece, so we encourage you to read the whole thing. Baron knows what he’s talking about. He worked for Bezos at the Post before retiring in 2021.

And here’s a Q&A that Baron did with Mediaite’s Kathryn Wilkens.

This is the kind of PR that just looks horrible for the Post. Axios’ Jaden Amos reported late last week: “Trump says he had dinner with Bezos week of Washington Post changes.”

Voice of America censors articles critical of Trump, opens investigations into journalists

Multiple journalists at Voice of America, a government-funded but editorially independent broadcaster, are under investigation for making comments critical of President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported Friday.

One of those journalists, chief national correspondent Steve Herman, has been placed on leave while a human resources investigation determines whether his “social media activity has undermined V.O.A.’s audiences’ perceptions of the objectivity and/or credibility of V.O.A. and its news operations.”

Last month, Herman faced criticism from the Trump administration for an X post that read, “Eliminating USAID ‘makes Americans less safe at home and abroad,’ says Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward.” The post linked to a longer thread on social media platform Mastadon that contained reporting about a lawsuit filed over the elimination of the United States Agency for International Development.

Voice of America has also killed or watered down multiple articles containing criticism of the Trump administration, reporters told the Times. Some speculated that the outlet’s decision Friday to reassign White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara to a different beat was another attempt to appease the Trump administration.

Voice of America is a part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to which Trump has nominated conservative activist and writer L. Brent Bozell as CEO. Bozell has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s pick to lead Voice of America, former television news anchor Kari Lake, is also waiting to be officially installed. Lake, who unsuccessfully ran for office in Arizona twice as a Republican, must be approved by the board overseeing USAGM. In the meantime, she is serving as a senior adviser to the agency.

Trump’s decision to elevate Bozell and Lake is just one of his administration’s many efforts to influence media coverage by favoring conservative voices.

In January, the Federal Communications Commission reopened complaints against CBS, ABC and NBC but not Fox News.

In February, the Pentagon took away office spaces from multiple mainstream outlets like CNN and NPR and reassigned those spaces to right-wing outlets like One America News Network and Breitbart.

That month, the Trump administration also took control of the White House press pool, reducing the number of spots available to wire services from three to one.

The day after the change was announced, the White House gave spots in the pool to conservative outlets Newsmax and The Blaze.

By media business reporter Angela Fu

Media tidbits and interesting links for your review

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[1] Url: https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/washington-post-editorials-personal-liberties-free-markets/

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