Josh Benton

Thanks for having me.

Well, there have been a lot of systemic difficulties in the newspaper business as long as I've been reporting on it.

There is a large secular decline that has been brought about by the internet that has continued on without too much change.

But I think the story of the Post is a very unique to the Post story.

It's fundamentally about one man, Jeff Bezos, and his changing vision of what the role of the owner of a major American newspaper should be.

Well, for one thing, the Washington Post has always been a paper whose editorial importance was not limited to the city or to the district.

It's a national outlet.

It's one of the two largest national newspaper outlets.

It covers the happenings in Washington, D.C.

Certainly, there's lots of stories to cover there.

So to the extent that we have any decrease in the number of people who are paying attention to what's going on, I think that's a loss.

It's also a retrenchment from what Jeff Bezos first seemed to pledge when he first purchased the paper in 2013, which was that he would not be looking to the newspaper as a source of money.

He has enough money from lots of other sources.

He did seem to take seriously the idea that he was a steward of an institution the way that the Graham family that he purchased it from had always viewed the role of being in charge of this institution that mattered to the city and to the country.

And it's certainly true that the Washington Post has lost money and has declined in a number of ways financially.

It's also up to Jeff Bezos whether or not he is going to support a newspaper that is going to be robust journalistically and ambitious digitally.

or whether or not he has grown tired of it and decided to step back his investment in the property.

And I think what's troubling in this particular change is you're seeing what had been an institution that had really benefited from his ownership for a good long time that seems to have gone into reverse in a way that particularly aligns with the way that the political winds in Washington have blown for the last few years.

We saw a confluence of events in the fall of 2024 around President Trump's second election that I think were very telling.

You had, in October, Bezos making a decision on behalf of the newspaper to stop endorsing candidates for president at a time that the newspaper would have certainly been expected to and the editorial board of the newspaper had desired to endorse Kamala Harris.