 |
Today's edition of
The Washington Post |
I learnt about what happened at
The Washington Post through a notification on my mobile about Ishaan Tharoor's post on X.
(Ishaan Tharoor is an American journalist who worked for
The Time and later for
The Washington Post. He is also the son of
Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian diplomat who served as the Under-Secretary-General at the UN, and is currently an Indian politician representing the Congress party in the Lower House of Parliament.)
Approximately one-third of the newspaper's workforce was laid off. More than 300 journalists in total. The standalone sports section and the Book World section are gone.
Foreign bureaux across Asia (including the one in New Delhi) and the Middle East are shut. The metro desk, once 40 reporters strong, has been reduced to a dozen.
The daily flagship news podcast, Post Reports, has been suspended, and deep cuts made to the photography and design departments.
Executive Editor Matt Murray described the move as a "strategic reset" to ensure long-term survival amid falling subscriber numbers and competition from AI-led news aggregation. Shortly after these cuts, on February 8, CEO Will Lewis resigned from the paper.
 |
Pranshu Verma's last story for The Washington Post
from New Delhi in the February 3 edition. |
JOURNALISTIC HIGHS
Think of
The Washington Post, and it's
Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein who come to mind. These two young reporters, in the 1970s, began investigating what looked like a minor burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex.
One lead led to another. They didn't give up. Ably backed by their editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham, the two uncovered a massive conspiracy -- which came to be known as the
Watergate Scandal -- that went all the way to the White House. President Richard Nixon had to resign in 1974.
Easily one of the best works in journalism ever. It is all well chronicled in the book All The President's Men, and also in the film by the same name. The book is available on Amazon and the film is available on YouTube.
In fact, the 1970s were the golden years for the
Post. Only a few years earlier, it had published, defying government pressure, the
Pentagon Papers — a top-secret U.S. Department of Defense report on the Vietnam War. (
The New York Times also published them.)
OWNERSHIP CHANGES
Founded in 1877, The Washington Post struggled financially for decades. Then, financier Eugene Meyer purchased it in 1933. Under Meyer and his successors, particularly his daughter Katharine Graham, the Post became a sort of role model for journalists around the world.
For 80 years, the Post was run by the Meyer-Graham family. It prioritised its mission over short-term profits, took risks, and invested in expensive investigations.
Then came the internet and social media in the late 1990s and 2000s, impacting newspapers. They changed entirely the way people consumed news, but more importantly, how much they were willing to pay for it.
With print advertising collapsing and circulation dropping, even the Meyer-Graham family's wealth couldn't insulate the Post from being affected.
In 2013, the family made a momentous decision. They sold The Washington Post to to Nash Holdings, a holding company owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, for $250 million.
It was sad. But there was some hope. Because Bezos was one of the richest in the world and he understood technology in ways that traditional publishers didn't. Maybe he had the solution on how to make journalism financially viable in the digital age.
That hope wasn't misplaced. The paper invested heavily in digital infrastructure, and it saw an increase in subscriptions.
But that didn't last long. The Post simply couldn't find its way forward in this modern tech-driven media world. Revenes and circulation began to fall.
COST OF RUNNING A NEWSROOM
Quality journalism is very expensive. You need a big team of journalists. They need to be paid their salaries, as well as travel and boarding expenses if they have to go outstation. Maintaining a bureau abroad is even more expensive.
A newsroom needs a big team of copy editors to work on the reporters' copy, correct errors, and fact-check; lawyers to review possible defamatory claims; photographers and videographers; digital teams to work on video and audio, to build and maintain websites, apps, and social media streams.
It is all very cost-intensive.
Now, if there is a layoff, that means fewer journalists will have to handle a bigger volume of work. That means quality declines.
COLLAPSE OF MONOPOLY AND REVENUE MODEL
Those were the days when everyone turned to newspapers for everything — both readers as well as advertisers.
If you wanted to buy a car, sell a house, or find a job, you looked advertisements. If you wanted to know what was happening in your city or the world, you bought a newspaper. Publishers charged advertisers a hefty sum.
The internet completely destroyed this model. Advertisers don't need newspapers. They send their messages directly to their specific target audience for free, or maybe a fraction of the cost.
News too comes free. Why buy a newspaper when you can get news from several newspapers online virtually at no cost?
Social media has only made things worse. Very few people now look for, or read, or listen to news. They just discover it (mainly clickbait stories) on algorithm-powered platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. And of course, there are "very credible" WhatsApp forwards from unknown people too!
While these tech companies make money, the actual sources of news (the media organisations) on these platforms get virtually nothing.
Now with artificial intelligence, you don't even click on news links to read a story. The AI reads a vast amount of articles on a particular subject for you and gives you a well-drafted summary! So, now, even the clicks are gone!
In short, the business model that sustained journalism for more than 100 years has simply collapsed.
WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON
The Washington Post isn't the only organisation going through this phase. The Los Angeles Times had multiple rounds of layoffs. NBC News, CBS News, etc., have all reduced their staff.
The Evening Standard in London, a newspaper with almost 200 years of history, in 2024 converted its newspaper from a daily format to a weekly format due to financial constraints, and in the process laid off 150 employees, including many journalists.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Canada announced in 2023 that they would eliminate approximately 600 jobs and not fill 200 existing vacancies, because of financial constraints.
It's not just legacy print media. Even digital media organisations are cutting staff. In 2023, BuzzFeed shut down its news division, and Vice Media filed for bankruptcy.
In India too, almost all big media houses have seen layoffs over the past several years.
IT'S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT MONEY
Journalism is not marketing or sales. Work cannot be quantified. It's never about numbers.
This is probably the only industry where the product (the newspaper/magazine) is sold at a price far lower than the cost price.
Most media organisations have always struggled to make ends meet. They survive mostly by cross-subsidising (the profits from a successful product/service are used to offset the losses of another).
WHITHER JOURNALISM?
The reasoning behind the The Washington Post layoffs is that because of shrinking revenues, the Post wants to focus now on fewer areas (mainly Washington and the rest of the US) rather than cover everything around the world.
To be fair, Jeff Bezos has every right to run the paper the way he wants. If he wants to take the Post in a totally different direction, that's entirely his call.
But what is worrying is the broader impact on journalism.
Since anyone with an internet connection can now post any information in the public domain, the definition of news itself seems to have changed. In fact, unverified and sensational information has a higher likelihood of being passed around as news.
Very few people are interested in a balanced and well-rounded coverage of an issue. People want only information that aligns with their own line of thinking. They are lost in the comforts of the
echo chamber. Contrarian views are usually rubbished and dismissed contemptuously.
Democracy requires an informed citizenry. When newsrooms shrink, many important news events aren't covered. Even if they do get covered, it is not comprehensive work. The space for informed public debate also shrinks.
Journalism is not public relations. Journalism is about looking at all aspects of an issue. It's about debates covering diverse perspectives. It's about uncomfortable truths. It's the
Fourth Estate (the others being the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary).
So where does journalism go from here?
There are no easy answers, because we're in a period of painful transition. One, the old business model is dead and the new model hasn't yet emerged. Two, public relations and sensationalism are increasingly mistaken for journalism.
Media houses are experimenting with different revenue models. One is the subscription model; either the whole website is behind a paywall, or a part of it is. Newspapers and magazines are increasing their cover prices.
Another is having non-profit ownership, wherein there is no pressure on the media house to generate returns for the investors or owners.
There is a lot that the news-reading public can do as well.
One, pay for good journalism.
Two, never forward or put into the public domain information that is unverified or speculative.
Three, don't just read the headlines and short summary. Read the whole story.
Four, remember the value of journalism — it is too precious to be allowed to die.
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