Brian Stelter Writes About the ‘Real’ Crisis at the Washington Post (2024)

Full confession: This editor has not yet read Fox News watchdog Brian Stelter's piece in The Atlantic about the "real story" about what's going on at the Washington Post. He's guessing that the problem is with the new management. As we reported earlier this month, Washington Post CEO and publisher William Lewis held an all-hands meeting in which he told reporters, "People are not reading your stuff." Readership was down 50 percent, and the paper lost $77 million in 2023.

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The reporters' response? Politics reporter Ashley Parker reportedly challenged Lewis’s decision-making, earning applause from her colleagues after saying, “Now we have four white men running the newsroom."

Before we look into Stelter's piece, he's a fun post from Post technical writer Taylor Lorenz responding to Briahna Joy Gray's query if any newspapers were looking into the shocking story of the Israelis training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.

Much as @TaylorLorenz would like to pretend this is true, there is no legitimate journalist who is reporting this. “It’s been a major topic of discussion on X all day” because this app is a cesspool of antisemitic conspiracy theories, you idiot. pic.twitter.com/tMc5mwGh19
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) June 25, 2024

Did Lorenz investigate the claims? Did any of her colleagues?

Anyway, let's hear what Stelter has to say:

If you want to understand the current crisis at The Washington Post—the still-unfolding ethical scandal threatening the reign of its publisher and CEO, the growing newsroom revolt, the tumult and uncertainty about the paper’s future—you have to start with the previous crisis, just 18 months ago, which led to Will Lewis’s appointment as CEO. It was the end of 2022, and, like today, the Post was in desperate need of an intervention.
Web traffic was plunging. Subscription levels were falling steeply as well, and digital-ad revenues were slipping. Beloved sections of the Post—Outlook, the Sunday magazine—were being shut down to cut costs. Washington’s paper of record was on track to lose money for the first time in years.

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Brett T.

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So the problem is Lewis and Post owner Jeff Bezos — The Atlantic's subhead reads, "How the world’s greatest businessman drove his newspaper into a ditch."

Christopher Rufo has a different explanation of the Post's problems:

This @BrianStelter story about the failure of the Washington Post does not mention the name Lorenz, Rubin, Bump, or Kessler even a single time. The reason the paper is failing is not Bezos; it's the masthead, which is stocked with writers who have driven the quality into a ditch. pic.twitter.com/djI7bH3wsC
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024

Don't forget Boot!
— Charles Zim (@Charles_Zim) June 27, 2024

Yes, yes, can't forget MAX BOOT
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 27, 2024

Of all the people they laid off, they kept Lorenz. What does she even do there?

Brian Stelter Writes About the ‘Real’ Crisis at the Washington Post (2024)

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