“This is a tragic day for American journalism, the city of Washington and the country as a whole. I’m grieving for reporters I love and whose work upheld the truest and most noble callings of the profession.They are being punished for mistakes they did not cause.”
—-Jeff Stein, The Post’s chief economics correspondent, bemoaning the lay-offs today of some 300 Washington Post journalists
Who does Stein think he’s kidding? Or is he completely oblivious to his own paper’s abandonment of fair, honest and objective journalism that is a major, if not the only reason for the Washington Post’s demise?
Stein was quoted in the New York Times’ gloating report of today’s metaphorical massacre. It wrote in part,
“The Washington Post carried out a widespread round of layoffs on Wednesday that decimated the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage.
The company laid off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said.
The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first eight years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.”
The Washington Post figured out too late that the country only needed one all-Democrat-all-the-time biased paper, and that the New York Times was better at its biased reporting and pandering to its bubble than the Post anyway.
The Post could have survived, I believe, by becoming a national paper that strove for even-handedness and objectivity, leaving the Frustrated Right to the Wall Street Journal and the Angry Left to the Times. USA Today had failed miserably at filling that niche (Have you read that rag lately? Weekly Reader used to be more informative!). The opportunity was there once, but many years ago. Instead, the Post continued to inflict flagrant Axis hacks on its dwindling non-woke readers, propaganda agents like E.J. Dionne, Richard Cohen, Dana Milbank, Phillip Bump, Kathleen Parker, Eugene Robinson, Jonathan Capehart and more. Since the local readership was about 95% Democrat, hey, why bother being fair or non-partisan?
Well, people like me and my wife constituted one reason. The Post is my local paper, but we got so sick of its spin and bias, particularly its efforts to sanitize Bill Clinton’s corruption and lies during Monicagate, that we paid three times what the Post cost to have the New York Times delivered every morning. I confess that I was influenced in my decision by the suffering of my professional theater company, which deliberately eschewed the navel-gazing woke dramas that were slobbered over by the Post’s theater critics and was repeatedly slammed and snubbed by the paper’s critics for it.
I remember one of the few times the Post’s chief critic deigned to attend an American Century Theater revival (they were virtually all revivals) of Gore Vidal’s satirical political thriller, “The Best Man.” She actually wrote that Vidal’s script was dated and unbelievable, because a Presidential candidate would never lose an election because of character issues, that only his policies mattered. This was, of course, while the Post was licking Bill Clinton’s metaphorical boots.
Ethics Alarms 
Not to mention his Executive Order 6102, which made ownership of gold (other than nominal amounts in jewelry) illegal. What was the ethical basis for THAT?
Was this meant to go on the next post, about FDR?
Yes, that comment got attached to the wrong post. I reply to the email distribution, rather than “commenting”, which may contribute to my confusion.
Don’t feel bad—I did the same thing yesterday.
“Far from upholding ‘the truest and most noble callings’ of journalism, THEY WERE OPENLY BIASED AND SMUG ABOUT IT.” (bolds/caps/italics mine)
EXHIBIT I: The Campaign To Impeach President Trump Has Begun–WaPo Headline dated 01/20/2017
PWS
“She actually wrote that Vidal’s script was dated and unbelievable, because a Presidential candidate would never lose an election because of character issues, that only his policies mattered. This was, of course, while the Post was licking Bill Clinton’s metaphorical boots.”
Correct. I wonder how the Facebook friend in your most recent entry (who most certainly supported Bill Clinton, right?) would react to being reminded of “It’s the economy, stupid”.
If they decimated them, they only would have laid off 80.
Alert the Times stylebook!
[Harris was] a co-conspirator in hiding the fact that unelected operatives were running the Presidency while the official occupant slid into senility.
And we came too close to her being installed as the next official occupant run by those unelected operatives for another four or eight years.
So funny how salaried, lefty workers think people like Bezos are obligated to give a not insignificant amount of their wealth to causes they like. Clearly, people like Bezos have too much money, so they should re-distribute it as the left sees fit. This is simply wealth redistribution directed by our moral superiors. They are shocked, shocked I tell you that a too rich guy isn’t willing to share. Amusing. In case they haven’t noticed, wealthy people didn’t become wealthy by giving away their money and they are rarely inclined to do so.
“So funny how salaried, lefty workers think people like Bezos are obligated to give a not insignificant amount of their wealth to causes they like.”
It’s not always money, OB, sometimes it’s as simple as referring to a bloodthirsty POS terrorist like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who offed himself, as an Austere Religious Cleric
And leave it to those social media meanies to (heh!) offer up similar analogies:
“Adolf Hitler, dedicated art enthusiast, animal rights activist, and talented orator, dies at 56“
“Ted Bundy, meticulous researcher, charismatic figure, and Polaroid enthusiast, dead at 42”
PWS
You forgot vegetarian proponent, environmentalist, universal health care pioneer, reproductive health supporter, and ‘community organizer’.
Leftist TwitteX commentary on this leans heavily on the idea that Bezos’ wealth and personal choices in other spending should dictate that he keep the fired deadwood at WaPo employed.