Revenue Dies in Wokeness: Trouble Brewing at the Washington Post as Executive Editor Sally Buzbee Steps Down
“We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee has stepped down in a sign that things are not going well for the media institution. Despite the fact that it’s an election year and there is no shortage of news, the paper’s readership is down.
It’s been known for months now that the Post has a cash flow problem, but this is the first high-level management change to be made public.
Axios reported:
Sally Buzbee steps down as Washington Post executive editor
Washington Post executive editor Sally Buzbee has stepped down from her position, the news outlet announced Sunday.
Why it matters The first woman to lead the newsroom in the Post’s 144-year history is leaving as the news outlet prepares for a shakeup of newsroom operations.
Catch up quick: Buzbee came to the Post as executive editor in 2021, replacing longtime newsroom leader Marty Barron.
- The Post won six Pulitzers during Buzbee’s three years as executive editor, but her tenure was marred by reports of tension between her and the Post’s former chief executive and publisher, Fred Ryan.
- Ryan stepped down last year, and was replaced by former News Corp. executive Will Lewis.
Driving the news: Effective immediately, Buzbee will be replaced by Matt Murray, former editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal.
According to FOX News, the paper’s publisher and CEO, Matt Lewis, recently had a meeting with staffers that involved some tough love:
WaPo boss sounds alarm over dwindling audience in heated staff meeting: ‘People are not reading your stuff’
Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis had a blunt message for his staff during a tense meeting following the sudden ouster of executive editor Sally Buzbee, according to the paper’s own reporting.
“We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” Lewis told the paper. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Lewis informed his staff Sunday night that Buzbee, who joined the Post in 2021, was parting ways with the paper “effective immediately.” He announced her temporary replacement would be former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray, who is expected to hold the position through the 2024 election cycle, and that the paper was being restructured into “three newsrooms,” in hopes of turning things around for the beleaguered “Democracy Dies in Darkness” publication.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Buzbee was uncomfortable with an offer to run a different division of the paper. She also reportedly had urged Lewis to hold off on implementing such changes until after the election, which Lewis refused.
Twitter/X is buzzing over the news.
This scene is too perfect. The woke toddlers who flew the Washington Post into the side of a mountain are lecturing the guys hired to pick up the wreckage about diversity and gender. The very obsessions that cost the paper its readership. Perfection. https://t.co/Rgq5qqRZYm
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) June 4, 2024
lol, washington post is on the brink of financial collapse and the reporters are melting down about the fact that "four white men" are now running their newsroom https://t.co/CO0Wu8z8HD
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 3, 2024
WASHINGTON POST CEO: “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore,”
It’s so glorious to see their collapse 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Fb3aeuSKnR
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 4, 2024
This article about the Washington Post is stunning
They have lost half of their audience in recent years, losing massive $$$.
What is the top concern of reporters? The number of White men in top positions.
These people are disconnected from reality.https://t.co/85Ax5v5zVA
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) June 4, 2024
The obvious litmus test is the decision about Taylor Lorenz. If they are serious, the new management will immediately let her go; if they are not, they will find an excuse to keep her on.
Either way, it's a great test case. We will see if losing half your audience and $77… https://t.co/z6EvAuJJ2Q
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 3, 2024
Big shakeup at woke Washington Post, which lost more than $70 million and 50% of audience in 2023. Why?
Just spitballing, but start here:
—Phony Russian collusion stories;
—Spiking Hunter laptop story;
—Mouthpiece for harmful Covid lockdown stories…etc. https://t.co/knxRSuzXbY— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) June 4, 2024
Trump’s political future is in better shape than that of the Washington Post.
If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is.
Featured image via YouTube.
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the left secretly mumbles:
this is why we need trump in office>>>$$$$$$$$$$
Hey hey,
Ho ho,
affirmative action’s
the way to go
Hey hey,
Ho ho,
. . .
The theory was that it was run by the CIA who was blackmailing the owner in a quid for not quo, and the loss was just the price.
How many cheerleaders does Biden need ?
is this a hunter joke? 🙂
Hunter doesn’t know any real cheerleaders, just “cheerleaders.”
B/C lefty and some hardcore righties
WILLLLL NOTTTT tackle the truth(s) when their party is in charge
money is lost
to this day you’d think Nixon started VietNam and that the gop wanted slavery>>>according to the left
The Bill Maher type running the WaPo would have a 75/25 left reporting balance
as is the usual (other than the fake attempts around election time) lefty is 99% just a propaganda tool for the dnc
bye bye “first female to helm the wapo”
blaming sexism and homophobia for her ouster ,,beelzebub stated
I am secure in my new position as pride homeocming queen/king/it/they/them
Oh, no!
Anyway…
Jeff Bezos may own WaPo, personally, but, anything associated with him and Amazon.com should be boycotted. Amazon is among the most obnoxious corporations pushing the Dhimmi-crat agenda, refusing to stock books by conservative authors and evincing general hostility towards conservatives.
If Bezos had desired, immediately after his purchase of WaPo he could have demanded and implemented a more centrist attitude towards reporting, with far less obnoxiously leftist/Dhimmi-crat bias and Narrative(TM)-peddling/promotion by “reporters” and the editorial staff. That he hasn’t is dismaying.
Nah. Amazon is great, because you can order boatloads of stuff, then return it on their dime for any reason / no reason.
Now, I’ve only used this offering responsibly, but it’s not like I see any controls in place.
When I was an Amazon customer, my credit card info was repeatedly used for fraudulent Amazon transactions that took more time and effort to clear up through Amazon customer service, than they should have. And, the company’s store website is an ungodly and disorganized mess, stuffed with ads and other non-pertinent nonsense.
But, this isn’t about Amazon’s merit with regard to shopping convenience. E-commerce is generally convenient. But, any conservative who desires to refrain from empowering “woke” corporations should refrain from patronizing them.
There are plenty of alternative merchants to buy from, including purchasing directly from manufacturers.
I extend this to Whole Foods Market, whom I also refrain from patronizing. You have to draw a line in the sand, at some point. I’m tired of Silicon Valley/Seattle tech giants consistently throwing their weight around, on behalf of the vile Dhimmi-crats.
Stay away from Thrive Market also……
agree
I always try and find things with my local mom and pop stores and/or smaller regional stores IF they can be somewhat competitive on price by which I mean if they are no more than 10% higher than Amazon for the same thing I give them the business. The local stores get one shot to be competitive on price for repeatedly purchased items.
Unfortunately most are unable or unwilling to be anything close to that mark and so Amazon gets the bulk of my trade. Amazon free delivery to my rural address is big deal savings on time, fuel and effort is gravy on top of price.
Put that staff under the same production standards the Amazon warehouse workers and drivers have to maintain, then we’ll get real outrage.
What did they expect? They haven’t been a reliable source of political news in over 40 years. The wokester reporters led by Taylor Lorenz are 1st rate morons. They think that the mirror is a reflection of society.
FJB
I beg your pardon. Surely these are 2nd rate morons.
I’d describe them as 1st rate midwits.
I think you have the title backwards … wokeness is a sign of a revenue problem. Financially healthy companies focus on profits.
Almost as if these woke feminist ‘girl bosses’ make bad decisions about the strategy of their company and substituted their ideology over their fiduciary duty to shareholders. Kathleen Kennedy running formerly hugely profitable Disney franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel into the ground. Some are outright fraudsters like Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. The common thread seems to be a see no evil attitude on the part of media and a reluctance both inside and out to hold them accountable for poor performance before they wreck the organization. In sum it appears that these woke feminists are give far too much leeway and celebrity for being a ‘first’ with far too little attention paid to their performance until it becomes a train wreck. Ultimately this harms the competent women who are left in their wake but were less celebrated for DEI/CRT b/c they didn’t seek to make everything about themselves or their personal brand, status instead rolling up their sleeves and focusing on the work of maximizing shareholder value by putting the organization above their own interests. .
They are in the running for a Beaulah Surprise.
Credibility Dies in Cheap Unbelievable Communist Propaganda
– The WaPo’s new slogan
News organizations are not money making organizations
They are money laundering organizations.
$77,000,000 lost in a single year of someone else money won’t make a scratch on these liberal writers and editors. If they could, they would lose another $170M of others people money to push their agenda. In fact no loss of other peoples money is too much for the dedicated liberal.
Great title for this article! WaPo has been unreadable for years and barely distinguishable from say a teenager twitter post with headlines like “so and so totally owned Trump,” “Biden is using the peloton, but maybe he shouldn’t,” but the best one ever “shark week lacks diversity.” Those clowns at WaPo will blame everyone but themselves, and say , oh it’s everyone using social media, no one reads anymore. Well subscriptions to substack are through the roof, because the quality of writing, reporting and diversity of opinions, topics, viewpoints is far superior.
Didn’t the death spiral kick in about the time they changed their masthead to “Democracy Dies in Darkness” ?,
Can’t wait for:
Muh DeMocRAcy Dies in Wokeness
But in answer to your question, it’s worth noting that the change in motto coincided with Trump’s election… and it was no coincidence.
Sounded like she was canned, not simply stepping down. The inmates now complain that white men are running things.
Meh … Bezos can afford to fund the WaPo as his little anti-American plaything and mouthpiece. That’s all he bought it for, anyway. Making money was never the point.
Trump deserves three scopes of ice cream tonight.
All of the staff at these captured institutions speak and think in one voice. They’re blue screen of death organic robots.
NPC fits perfectly.
TFP has a great article on the fall of Vice it is worth reading
A great man once said that “everything woke turns to shit”….chalk another one up for President Trump. The whining from the Democrat Socialist woke Anti Semites in their newsroom is beautiful noise to me….
Why it matters The first woman to lead the newsroom in the Post’s 144-year history is leaving as the news outlet prepares for a shakeup of newsroom operations.
———————
Huh, and here I thought it was Katherine Graham that was the first woman to lead wapoop.
This business is in trouble and we are going to have to change.
but. but… you’re white! eewww….
lol
Hmm. I thought the Pullet Surprise was my Aunt Martha’s chicken casserole.
DIEversity (e.g. sexism… genderism, racism). #HateLovesAbortion
It’s cute that the WP cretins seem to think that the Pulitzer Prize means something good. Even dim 7th graders now realize the the Pulitzer only means that the recipient has abandoned all honesty and honor in order to tell the powerful exactly what they want to hear. The paper has always been leftist, but its now moral and intellectual trash.
if someone could just paper trail tax money to these msm accounts and those lefty universities that are so hell-bent on destroying america
Was anyone ever really reading it, at all? The powers that be all had clipping services or admins poring over the summary contents and snipping out bites that were interesting and discarding the rest. In the dead tree era, it lined a lot of bird cages, fish and cat litter pans. Electronically, it’s just flotsam. Now it’s just useless.
If it were not for the fact that Pravda on the Hudson had a pay wall and huge financial backing it would be in the same state as Pravda on the Potomac