Jim VandeHei

I mean, it's an American tragedy.

And I don't mean to put, to be hyperbolic about it, but it is a tragedy.

And I know a lot of conservatives are like, oh, the Washington Post doesn't matter.

It's liberal.

You got to step back.

It is an institution that is central to

to this country and certainly central to the country's history, at least going back to the early 70s.

It has been literally a central player in some of the biggest dramas and some of the most important reporting on some of the most important topics in, by the way, the most powerful city in the world at probably its peak in power.

So it is a tragedy.

And what makes it more a tragedy, it was a foreseen and foreseeable tragedy.

That is what breaks my heart.

I worked at the Washington Post 20 years ago.

I used to read all the president's men or watch all the president's men.

Joe Theismann would watch Rocky before a Super Bowl.

It gets my blood pumping.

It's one of the reasons that I'm a journalist.

It's one of the reasons I have such a romantic attachment to the profession.

It sucks.

Yeah, a couple of things.

At that time, this sounds nuts, but I felt like there was a bigger appetite for more political content that was even deeper and kind of more about the political drama and the interworkings of government than even the Washington Post was producing.