Jeff Bezos wants Washington Post’s newsroom budget halved, productivity doubled

gmerc

There’s a typo in the headline. “ended”, not “upended”

prpl

The last year it has really gone down hill — hard. Reporting is mediocre, photojournalism is forgettable, and the opinion section is absolute garbage.

thunderbong

https://archive.ph/jDX3O

nayroclade

The WP reportedly lost $100m in 2024. So one the one hand, you might understand Bezos wanting things to change. On the other hand, Blue Origin reportedly loses multiple billions of $ per year, and has done for decades, which Bezos pumps in without insisting on massive cuts or layoffs.

fbistrash

Washington Post opinion section is just garbage. I would call it propaganda section.

whatever1

He is a billionaire he owns the paper he can do whatever he wants with it. Who cares anyway today about newspapers and tv. Public opinion is shaped by social media.

shevy-java

The big problem is that the greedy TechBros want to influence legislation and politics. Right now there is an orange TechBro in charge, so the oligarch mafia will succeed (aside from their own intrinsic stupidity) - but eventually voters in the USA need to decide whether they really want the superrich to pull all strings on the puppet. It's the economy, s.....

throwaway81523

> Jeff Bezos wants Washington Post’s newsroom budget halved, productivity doubled Sort of like Moore's Law. If he can do that every 18 months then in a few decades the newsroom will really fly! News flash: it doesn't work like that. :(

mort96

I can't see where the article defines how it measures "productivity". Is it just words produced per hour? Journalism is, I imagine, much like programming: a lot of the words are "boilerplate" and cheap to produce, but those aren't the important parts of a story. Some of the words require a lot of work. Getting a direct quote from a relevant person. Doing the deep research to expose a claim as false instead of blindly parroting it. Getting multiple sources to voice contrasting views on a topic. Fact checking an article before publication. I worry that whatever their definition of "productivity" is, it ignores these important yet time consuming aspects, and as such, what looks like "increased productivity" in their metrics is really just a decrease in quality.

niek_pas

More with less, huh?

ece

Why doesn't he sell while he can still get something for it? Continuing the trajectory it has been on in the last two years will mean shuddering the paper or turning it into X hoping some users will switch.

ErrorNoBrain

half budget double productivity 4 x 'value' so he wants AI written slop i hope this ends badly

advael

Yea we should simply get more done with less money, why didn't I think of that? Dude's a genius Maybe if we halved his budget he could be twice as productive too. Could you imagine? We could call it financial intermittent fasting

b00ty4breakfast

Jeffy wants to have his cake and eat it, too; a propaganda apparatus that turns a profit. The obvious solution would be to not own a spin machine if it's not turning a profit if you're looking to make money. But of course that would leave him without a mouthpiece. I also wonder how much having his name attached to the thing is responsible for the awful balance sheet ca 2024. It may never turn a profit as long as it's a known Bezos operation.

laughing_man

Looks like he intends to treat them like Amazon employees. I wonder if he'll do stack ranking as well. Or maybe they'll pee in bottles at their desks.

doe88

It is like a guy seeing headlines "wapo is losing" money and feeling ashamed in its "genius entrepreneur's ego / could never be wrong" and taking revenge on whoever he can take revenge and inflict pain just for the sake of it.

28304283409234

I wish Bezos would buy GRRM. I am sure it would result in top quality final books to Sing of Ice and Fire.

stotemoat

Jeff Bezos is an awful person.

phs318u

AI oh, AI oh, It’s off to work we (used to) go.

thiht

Why does he not want /10 budget for x10 productivity instead? Is he stupid?