Derek Thompson

So several weeks ago, we recorded an episode of this show called Everything is Television, where I pointed out that everything, social media, AI, podcasts, was evolving toward video.

And as I said on that show, I didn't expect that I would be able to resist the tide of history.

So here we are, in a new chapter of this show, as this is our first video podcast.

If you're listening to us without video, there is no need to do anything different.

You can carry on.

I myself am mostly an audio-only kind of guy.

But if you're watching us on Spotify or YouTube, welcome and thanks for joining us in this next phase of Plain English.

This is a big show for me for a second reason, which is that it's my first show back from two months out on paternity leave.

Mom and baby girl are doing great.

And rather than start us off on something dense and complicated like AI or some scientific breakthrough, I thought I'd get back into the groove of podcasting with a subject that is extremely close to home.

The state of journalism and the fate of the Washington Post.

Growing up in McLean, Virginia, I fell in love with journalism by falling in love with the Washington Post, whose sports section, movie reviews, and op-eds were my introduction to what journalism could be.

So it's been more than a little galling to see what's happened to the Post in the last few years, and in particular, in the last few weeks.

After years of posting losses close to $100 million, the Washington Post announced last week that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Later reports estimate that the paper actually gutted half of its unionized newsroom.

It is exceedingly rare for a newspaper to lay off half of its staff.

In fact, in research for this episode, I found no previous instance where a newspaper of this size had a layoff of this magnitude.

What compounds the frustration or the fury of many people is that the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder whose net worth exceeds $200 billion.

We have a situation here where perhaps the richest newspaper owner in modern history is overseeing the largest American newspaper layoff in modern history.

One goal of this episode is to trace the downfall of the Post under Bezos.