Im-Politic: What’s Really Wrong with Those Mass Washington Post Layoffs
This deserves loud pushback.
As a long-time subscriber to (but not a big fan of) the Washington Post, I’ve got to say that my biggest criticism of its dramatic restructuring decisions didn’t involve the scale of the cutbacks (a third of its editorial employees!). Instead, it involved the money-losing news organization’s priorities – which to this regular reader seemed largely upside down.
What the Post management decided to do was lay off about 300 staffers (including closing several foreign bureaus) and end the sports and book review sections.
I’d have done things much differently. Mainly, I’d have kept the sports section and the foreign bureaus, and fired the editorial board and all the columnists, and everyone connected with the Style section.
Not that the sports section has been perfect. This native New Yorker for one has been especially sick and tired of the annual articles claiming that “this year will be different” for the long pathetic and indeed dysfunctional Commanders (nee Redskins). Aside from that, daily reporting and analysis of local pro and college teams has been nothing special, but generally inoffensive.
The section, however, has featured Chuck Culpepper’s unbelievably encyclopedic and stylistically creative coverage of college football and other topics, and his columnist Barry Svrluga is a pretty sensible pundit – and indeed a welcome change but the knowledgeable but insufferably home-team rooting Tom Boswell (thankfully retired a few years ago but still being published occasionally).
Moreover, the Post does a great job on local high school sports, which for a football and basketball fan is a real treat considering what a hotbed of talent for both the greater DC area has been.
Nothing of the kind, though, can be said for the Opinion section. Major changes have been underway for a year, when owner (and founder Jeff Bezos) decided to diversify the viewpoints carried on those pages, which eventually led to the resignations or layoffs of some of the paper’s more left-of-center columnists and pundits, and editorial board members, and hiring of some conservatives. (See here for a good summary.)
In the wake of the latest firings, I couldn’t find any full rosters today. But the Opinion pages still offer too many burnt-out cases (like George F. Will and David Ignatius), too much dead wood (like Kathleen Parker) and too many thoroughly predictable globalist foreign policy Blob-ers (like Max Boot and Fareed Zakaria). Moreover, the right-of-center columnists it’s recently hired are overwhelmingly neoconservatives (that is, right-of-center foreign policy Blob-ers) like Marc Thiessen (who’s at least not Trump-ly deranged), or country club quasi-libertarian Republicans like Dominic Pino). Since it’s hard to imagine anyone outside their echo Beltway chamber waking up in the morning and asking, e.g., “I wonder what Karen Tumulty says about X,” I’d cashier the lot of them.
The same for the editorial board, which has moved away from Trump Derangement Syndrome on issues like immigration (e.g., here) and climate (e.g., here), but is still awful on trade policy (e.g., here) and pretty bad on some foreign policy matters (e.g., here). …
This deserves loud pushback.
As a long-time subscriber to (but not a big fan of) the Washington Post, I’ve got to say that my biggest criticism of its dramatic restructuring decisions didn’t involve the scale of the cutbacks (a third of its editorial employees!). Instead, it involved the money-losing news organization’s priorities – which to this regular reader seemed largely upside down.
What the Post management decided to do was lay off about 300 staffers (including closing several foreign bureaus) and end the sports and book review sections.
I’d have done things much differently. Mainly, I’d have kept the sports section and the foreign bureaus, and fired the editorial board and all the columnists, and everyone connected with the Style section.
Not that the sports section has been perfect. This native New Yorker for one has been especially sick and tired of the annual articles claiming that “this year will be different” for the long pathetic and indeed dysfunctional Commanders (nee Redskins). Aside from that, daily reporting and analysis of local pro and college teams has been nothing special, but generally inoffensive.
The section, however, has featured Chuck Culpepper’s unbelievably encyclopedic and stylistically creative coverage of college football and other topics, and his columnist Barry Svrluga is a pretty sensible pundit – and indeed a welcome change but the knowledgeable but insufferably home-team rooting Tom Boswell (thankfully retired a few years ago but still being published occasionally).
Moreover, the Post does a great job on local high school sports, which for a football and basketball fan is a real treat considering what a hotbed of talent for both the greater DC area has been.
Nothing of the kind, though, can be said for the Opinion section. Major changes have been underway for a year, when owner (and founder Jeff Bezos) decided to diversify the viewpoints carried on those pages, which eventually led to the resignations or layoffs of some of the paper’s more left-of-center columnists and pundits, and editorial board members, and hiring of some conservatives. (See here for a good summary.)
In the wake of the latest firings, I couldn’t find any full rosters today. But the Opinion pages still offer too many burnt-out cases (like George F. Will and David Ignatius), too much dead wood (like Kathleen Parker) and too many thoroughly predictable globalist foreign policy Blob-ers (like Max Boot and Fareed Zakaria). Moreover, the right-of-center columnists it’s recently hired are overwhelmingly neoconservatives (that is, right-of-center foreign policy Blob-ers) like Marc Thiessen (who’s at least not Trump-ly deranged), or country club quasi-libertarian Republicans like Dominic Pino). Since it’s hard to imagine anyone outside their echo Beltway chamber waking up in the morning and asking, e.g., “I wonder what Karen Tumulty says about X,” I’d cashier the lot of them.
The same for the editorial board, which has moved away from Trump Derangement Syndrome on issues like immigration (e.g., here) and climate (e.g., here), but is still awful on trade policy (e.g., here) and pretty bad on some foreign policy matters (e.g., here). …
Im-Politic: What’s Really Wrong with Those Mass Washington Post Layoffs
This deserves loud pushback.
As a long-time subscriber to (but not a big fan of) the Washington Post, I’ve got to say that my biggest criticism of its dramatic restructuring decisions didn’t involve the scale of the cutbacks (a third of its editorial employees!). Instead, it involved the money-losing news organization’s priorities – which to this regular reader seemed largely upside down.
What the Post management decided to do was lay off about 300 staffers (including closing several foreign bureaus) and end the sports and book review sections.
I’d have done things much differently. Mainly, I’d have kept the sports section and the foreign bureaus, and fired the editorial board and all the columnists, and everyone connected with the Style section.
Not that the sports section has been perfect. This native New Yorker for one has been especially sick and tired of the annual articles claiming that “this year will be different” for the long pathetic and indeed dysfunctional Commanders (nee Redskins). Aside from that, daily reporting and analysis of local pro and college teams has been nothing special, but generally inoffensive.
The section, however, has featured Chuck Culpepper’s unbelievably encyclopedic and stylistically creative coverage of college football and other topics, and his columnist Barry Svrluga is a pretty sensible pundit – and indeed a welcome change but the knowledgeable but insufferably home-team rooting Tom Boswell (thankfully retired a few years ago but still being published occasionally).
Moreover, the Post does a great job on local high school sports, which for a football and basketball fan is a real treat considering what a hotbed of talent for both the greater DC area has been.
Nothing of the kind, though, can be said for the Opinion section. Major changes have been underway for a year, when owner (and founder Jeff Bezos) decided to diversify the viewpoints carried on those pages, which eventually led to the resignations or layoffs of some of the paper’s more left-of-center columnists and pundits, and editorial board members, and hiring of some conservatives. (See here for a good summary.)
In the wake of the latest firings, I couldn’t find any full rosters today. But the Opinion pages still offer too many burnt-out cases (like George F. Will and David Ignatius), too much dead wood (like Kathleen Parker) and too many thoroughly predictable globalist foreign policy Blob-ers (like Max Boot and Fareed Zakaria). Moreover, the right-of-center columnists it’s recently hired are overwhelmingly neoconservatives (that is, right-of-center foreign policy Blob-ers) like Marc Thiessen (who’s at least not Trump-ly deranged), or country club quasi-libertarian Republicans like Dominic Pino). Since it’s hard to imagine anyone outside their echo Beltway chamber waking up in the morning and asking, e.g., “I wonder what Karen Tumulty says about X,” I’d cashier the lot of them.
The same for the editorial board, which has moved away from Trump Derangement Syndrome on issues like immigration (e.g., here) and climate (e.g., here), but is still awful on trade policy (e.g., here) and pretty bad on some foreign policy matters (e.g., here). …
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