Jeff Bezos defends Washington Post layoffs – Business News
Billionaire Washington Post proprietor Jeff Bezos on Wednesday responded to criticism of the brutal spherical of layoffs at his paper earlier this 12 months, saying it wants to keep up relevancy and switch a revenue regardless of his wealth.
Several departments had been gutted, together with its sports activities, metro and books sections, in addition to its international correspondents and photojournalists. The large headcount discount surprised the media industry, though the paper’s heavy financial losses had been no secret.
Bezos sat down with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, who bluntly requested, “The company laid off about 30 percent of its staff, and there are a lot of people out there who said, ‘Jeff’s super wealthy, he’s talked about this being a public trust, something that he bought early on, how much you care about that piece of it. Why lay people off? Why fire people? Why don’t you subsidize the business?”
“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet,” Bezos shot back. The Amazon founder is among the many world’s richest males with an estimated web price of round $270 billion, based on Forbes.
“But does it? Some people say it should be a trust,” Sorkin stated.
“Let me tell you why. It’s a measure of its relevance. If people won’t pay for our product, it’s not a good enough product,” Bezos stated.
“It would be like poetry without rhyming. It’s too easy,” Bezos added. “So, it’s got to be something that people will pay for, because that’s a signal. It’s a signal that we’re providing a relevant service.”
“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet,” Jeff Bezos stated. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Bezos then identified that The New York Times, the place Sorkin additionally serves as a financial columnist, makes “a ton of money.”
“You guys are doing very well financially, and you’re providing a service that people are willing to pay for. We can do that, too,” Bezos stated.
“And guess what I told them when we were planning those layoffs. I didn’t pick who was going to get laid off or which departments. I said, ‘Follow the data,’” Bezos continued. “Follow the data, and I said there is one exception to this… don’t follow the data on investigative reporting.”
Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewing Bezos on Wednesday. CNBC Television
Bezos stated the “heart of the Post is investigative reporting,” and recommended the unit will proceed to thrive.
“Our newsroom today, after the layoffs, is still larger than when we did Watergate and the Pentagon Papers,” Bezos stated. “The Post is going to continue to be an important institution, in fact, it’s going to be a more important institution because of this financial discipline.”
Bezos pointed to a latest Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, which is taken into account probably the most prestigious of awards. The Post received the 2026 version for in-depth protection of the Trump administration’s efforts to remodel the federal authorities.
Bezos stated the “heart of the Post is investigative reporting,” and recommended the unit will proceed to thrive. Christopher Sadowski
“It needs to be relevant to readers, it needs to stand on its own two feet,” Bezos stated.
Sorkin additionally requested Bezos point-blank if he needed to own the paper.
“Do you want to own it? And the reason I ask is you’ve talked about how you are, by default, to some degree a conflicted owner, given you own all of these other businesses,” the CNBC host requested.
“When I bought The Post, it was very unprofitable when I brought it. The newsroom was even smaller than it is today. We turned it around in two years, it was profitable for six years. I put all that money back in The Post and grew the newsroom, so we’ve shrunk it back some now. But we haven’t shrunk it back to what it was when I bought it,” Bezos responded.
Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million. Getty Images
He stated the Post didn’t adapt, and the information setting has modified a lot over time.
Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million. The paper thrived during the primary Trump administration, but it surely has struggled in recent times with subscriber losses and bruising layoffs.
Bezos took explicit heat in 2024 when he yanked the liberal editorial board’s deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris, shortly earlier than her loss to President Donald Trump.
