Washington Post Staff Meeting Erupts Into Chaos As Layoffs Announced

[Ooh-Rah]

I used to subscribe to both them and the NY Times, but once they made the overt decision to not even try to offer a balanced product (hell I would have taken 60/40) I was out.

WSJ still gets my money, we’ll see for how long.

Get Woke, Go Broke: Washington Post Staff Meeting Erupts Into Chaos As Layoffs Announced
Zero Hedge

THURSDAY, DEC 15, 2022 - 12:20 PM

After losing more than half a million subscribers in the past two years, did the far-left writers and employees at the Washington Post really think they would avoid any consequences?

It would appear that they are exactly as oblivious as many people suspected.

A recent hidden camera video has surfaced of the latest Washington Post employee "town hall" meeting, in which CEO Fredrick Ryan delivers the bad news that the company will be executing worker layoffs after subscription revenues plummeted.

Not surprisingly, the employees (presumably made up primarily of journalists) erupted into a mass chatter of squawking chickens, demanding answers as well as job guarantees.

The Washington Post has long operated as a mouthpiece/bullhorn for establishment propaganda, and has functioned as an attack dog against conservatives for years rather than an accurate news source. Specifically, the outlet's use of fraudulent "fact checking" has contributed to a considerable decline in public trust, and this habit accelerated after Jeff Bezos acquired the Post in 2013. Amazon must not be doing so great this holiday season, and funds are drying up.

The corporate media is facing a reckoning this year going into 2023. Their audience numbers are in steep decline and have been since before the covid pandemic. While PPP loans and stimulus measures may have kept some of these outlets afloat, even that life raft is now disappearing along with ever shrinking ad revenues. The real culprit behind the fall of these companies, though, is themselves.

Woke zealotry does not sell. This is a fact proven time and time again, even more so in the past two years. When a media edifice chooses to cater to a tiny percentage of the population, many of them younger zennials with little to no money, it is only a matter of time before they face a profit collapse. The Washington Post is a victim of its own elitist ideology, and many of the employees are just as guilty as the leadership. Get woke, go broke.

 

[Marauder06]

Twitter... Facebook... now WaPo... yeah I'd like to think that they're having trouble because of the woke cult, but it seems to me like it's an industry-wide issue. Maybe if we compare to conservative outlets like Fox? How are those companies doing?

 

[Gunz]

Well...newspapers in general are fucking doomed. They're an anachronistic holdover from their heyday in the last two centuries. That's why they've scrambled in the past 20 years to go digital. And they'll never match the revenues from past circulation or advertising. In most cases, I'm happy to see them go. I'm especially glad not to see any more Doonesbury comic strips by that commie fuck, Mr. Jane Paulie.

 

[Marauder06]

Well...newspapers in general are fucking doomed. They're an anachronistic holdover from their heyday in the last two centuries. That's why they've scrambled in the past 20 years to go digital. And they'll never match the revenues from past circulation or advertising. In most cases, I'm happy to see them go, even though I used to contribute to them. I'm especially glad not to see any more Doonesbury comic strips by that commie fuck, Mr. Jane Paulie.

I think I posted here on the site why I finally pulled the plug on my NYT subscription. I'm fucking done giving my money to organizations who openly promote hate against me and the things I value.

 

[DA SWO]

The people they cater too do not read newspapers.
The people they attack do read, but got tired of being attacked, lied too, lied about and cancelled their subscriptions.
Editors and reporters forgot that it's a business, and a business needs to make money to survive. Telling your customer base to fuck themselves has never been a good idea (e.g. K-mart).

 

[R.Caerbannog]

Chortle

 

[Totentanz]

Well...newspapers in general are fucking doomed. They're an anachronistic holdover from their heyday in the last two centuries. That's why they've scrambled in the past 20 years to go digital. And they'll never match the revenues from past circulation or advertising. In most cases, I'm happy to see them go. I'm especially glad not to see any more Doonesbury comic strips by that commie fuck, Mr. Jane Paulie.

There's more to it than simply the years marching past a dated medium. The quality of the reporting (to say nothing of the blatant hard-left slant) is abysmal. The stories in both major and minor media outlets are now down to 2-5 sentences and are frequently ambiguous and littered with grammatical errors that would shame a middle-school student. It's rare to find a news story that is competently written, and "well-written" is an aberration.

 

[Gunz]

There's more to it than simply the years marching past a dated medium. The quality of the reporting (to say nothing of the blatant hard-left slant) is abysmal. The stories in both major and minor media outlets are now down to 2-5 sentences and are frequently ambiguous and littered with grammatical errors that would shame a middle-school student. It's rare to find a news story that is competently written, and "well-written" is an aberration.

It’s been “dumbed down” to be palatable to the audience (as @DA SWO says) that doesn’t read, doesn’t like to read, wasn’t brought up to read, and has a very short attention span.

When the product is dumbed down you don’t need good reporters or writers to produce it. So you hire hacks and pay them shit. Besides, most journalism students don’t want anything to do with print media. They want to be on TV. Their only motivation is fame and money, so those are the kind of empty-headed self-absorbed nitwits we have info-feeding the masses.

 

[Totentanz]

It’s been “dumbed down” to be palatable to the audience (as @DA SWO says) that doesn’t read, doesn’t like to read, wasn’t brought up to read, and has a very short attention span.

When the product is dumbed down you don’t need good reporters or writers to produce it. So you hire hacks and pay them shit. Besides, most journalism students don’t want anything to do with print media. They want to be on TV. Their only motivation is fame and money, so those are the kind of empty-headed self-absorbed nitwits we have info-feeding the masses.

It's been written at a lower level since I was in grade school. The difference now is that it's no longer "competent 3rd grade writing". It's difficult for me to garner the much-sought-after sympathy for all these laid off journalists when they've been putting zero effort into their work.

It's been a minute since this was true, but I remember a time when you had to possess a basic command of the English language in order to write for a living.

 

[amlove21]

Go woke, go broke. Cry me a fucking river. Learn to code.

I’ll take 100 plumbers in return for 100,000 journalists.

 

[AWP]

Job guarantees? You're in a fucking LAYOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are no job guarantees! Post 9/11 and 2008 have entered the fucking chat you twats! That's how it works, that is the REAL GODDAMN WORLD!!!!!!!!!!

It sucks, I have empathy because I've been there, but I also knew how the story plays out. These...clowns live in some wonderland where everyone is valued and taken care of and...puppy dogs and rainbows.

The world, the real world, is hard, cold, unforgiving, and doesn't care if you have enough to eat, drink, or stay warm. Welcome to "the real" WaPo staffers. See you down in Arizona fucking Bay.

----

I won't jump on the "go woke, go broke" train because I think there's more to it than that, but it is clear some organizations and their people are well out of touch with reality. It sucks for them, but I'm laughing because they built those crystal palaces.

 

[DA SWO]

Job guarantees? You're in a fucking LAYOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are no job guarantees! Post 9/11 and 2008 have entered the fucking chat you twats! That's how it works, that is the REAL GODDAMN WORLD!!!!!!!!!!

It sucks, I have empathy because I've been there, but I also knew how the story plays out. These...clowns live in some wonderland where everyone is valued and taken care of and...puppy dogs and rainbows.

The world, the real world, is hard, cold, unforgiving, and doesn't care if you have enough to eat, drink, or stay warm. Welcome to "the real" WaPo staffers. See you down in Arizona fucking Bay.

----

I won't jump on the "go woke, go broke" train because I think there's more to it than that, but it is clear some organizations and their people are well out of touch with reality. It sucks for them, but I'm laughing because they built those crystal palaces.

Bold face stuff, yep. Twitter, FakeBook, and a lot of other SM/Info organizations are (or soon will) take hits. We are in a fucking recession and newspapers are a luxury item. We are in a recession you guys/gals helped create by endorsing and assisting the party in power. Funny how Socialism is all the rage, then socialist policies hit your wallet and you still don't get it.

 

[amlove21]

----

I won't jump on the "go woke, go broke" train because I think there's more to it than that, but it is clear some organizations and their people are well out of touch with reality. It sucks for them, but I'm laughing because they built those crystal palaces.

It’s ok to think that there’s nuance- but I have (not hyperbolically) 70 trillion examples of companies selling all in on ‘woke’ ideology and getting their shit P3nEd for it. There are about zero examples in the inverse.

And it’s getting worse day by day. Non-woke IG pages are finally growing (you’d be shocked by our growth lately) and getting more and more traction daily. Those sticking to the woke ideology sre dying on the vine. I can see the analytics.

Look who is firing folks. Look who gets no more free lunches. Meta just turned off a BUNCH of perks for their remote folks (spouse is one) and in person folks.

Daily Wire isn’t doing that. Dave Rubin isnt. NFL starting to take off the dumb shot on the helmets. No more kneeling- is it cause cops are good? Or maybe they paid a penalty?

In this wasteland of ‘layoffs’… it only goes one way. And for once it ain’t the conservative way.

 

[Gunz]

It's been written at a lower level since I was in grade school. The difference now is that it's no longer "competent 3rd grade writing". It's difficult for me to garner the much-sought-after sympathy for all these laid off journalists when they've been putting zero effort into their work.

It's been a minute since this was true, but I remember a time when you had to possess a basic command of the English language in order to write for a living.

There are two things essential to being a good reporter: good writing and history. If you know those two things the rest is acquired by experience. My wife works with young reporters. She'll come home most nights with stories of their awful writing and shocking ignorance of even recent history, government, current affairs. They know who Pete Davidson is dating but have no idea where Ukraine is.

And, as you would expect, they are almost all Left of Center for reasons they probably couldn't intelligently explain.

 

[757]

There are two things essential to being a good reporter: good writing and history. If you know those two things the rest is acquired by experience. My wife works with young reporters. She'll come home most nights with stories of their awful writing and shocking ignorance of even recent history, government, current affairs. They know who Pete Davidson is dating but have no idea where Ukraine is.

And, as you would expect, they are almost all Left of Center for reasons they probably couldn't intelligently explain.

I would settle for good writing served with a side of objectivity.

 

[Cookie_]

Twitter... Facebook... now WaPo... yeah I'd like to think that they're having trouble because of the woke cult, but it seems to me like it's an industry-wide issue. Maybe if we compare to conservative outlets like Fox? How are those companies doing?

It's probably more likely due to other market factors then going "woke".
Go woke go broke has become the new "millennial are killing x industry". It's an easy headline to get your audience to support without having to do any actual explanation of what's happening.

Most tech companies artificially grew during COVID and are now correcting for that lose in value. Liberal (I'm differentiating from leftist here) print/online media has been losing subscribers for a while now.

Places like Fox and the Daily Wire are probably still doing well/growing.

This is older research, so take it with grains of salt, but it seems Conservatives tend to coalesce around the same media sources.

The findings of that research make sense to me, simply from looking at the media landscape.

How many right/center right media outlets are there? How many are actually all that large?

Fox and the Daily Wire are basically the two big players for the average news consumer that doesn't want to pay for a subscription.

 

[Marauder06]

What’s the difference between a leftist and a liberal? Aren’t they pretty much the same at this point?

Which left news outlets would you characterize as “liberal” vs “leftist?” Become to me, they’re seeming more and more like a a distinction without a difference.

 

[Devildoc]

It's probably more likely due to other market factors then going "woke".
Go woke go broke has become the new "millennial are killing x industry". It's an easy headline to get your audience to support without having to do any actual explanation of what's happening.

Most tech companies artificially grew during COVID and are now correcting for that lose in value. Liberal (I'm differentiating from leftist here) print/online media has been losing subscribers for a while now.

Places like Fox and the Daily Wire are probably still doing well/growing.

This is older research, so take it with grains of salt, but it seems Conservatives tend to coalesce around the same media sources.

The findings of that research make sense to me, simply from looking at the media landscape.

How many right/center right media outlets are there? How many are actually all that large?

Fox and the Daily Wire are basically the two big players for the average news consumer that doesn't want to pay for a subscription.

This is common sense (to me). Everyone does it...left right, in the middle: we go to media that represents our values.

Me, I have no sympathy. Left or not, the writing was on the wall for print media (especially newspapers) 20 years ago. This was bound to happen. Their colleagues who learned other skills evolved.

 

[Cookie_]

What’s the difference between a leftist and a liberal? Aren’t they pretty much the same at this point?

Which left news outlets would you characterize as “liberal” vs “leftist?” Become to me, they’re seeming more and more like a a distinct to in without a difference.

It's definitely a spectrum. I like to think of it has the difference between conservative and libertarian. Those have a lot of overlap, but you can go all the way from Rand Paul to Anarcho-Capitalist and still fall under the term "Libertarian". That's basically how the term leftist should be thought of.

The TL;DR answer is how pro or anti union/business it is, and how much it supports nationalization of institutions like Healthcare.
WaPo is liberal, Jacobin is leftist.

To provide an example using U.S. politicans (increasing in "leftness", my opinion of course)

Manchin, Biden, Pelosi, Ro Khanna, AOC, Sanders.

Ro Khanna (progressive capitalist that supports single payer healthcare) is probably the turnover point from liberal to leftist.

Obviously leftist can keep going to include actual Socialists/Communists, but that's the unfortunate blurriness of the "left vs. right" discussions.

 

[Blizzard]

The way we consume "news" has changed dramatically -- I'd argue, not for the better. It's been a very slow boil that started all the way back with the advent of CNN and the 24 hour news cycle. Others then joined the fray. As technology advanced, new sources, like blogs, slowly began gaining traction and provided more niche sources for information. Fast forward, now we have Twitter and other decentralized news sources all providing near real-time information on events around the world. We've reached full saturation with information overload and the costs for one organization to be an aggregator of that information, especially unique angles, are significant.

No one under 20 - probably even under 30 regularly watches the local news at 10pm anymore. Some have probably never seen their local news, let alone read an actual newspaper. The genie is out of the bottle, but frankly, I kind of miss being spoon fed information just once a day by my 10pm local news channel. Nonetheless, I imagine that's the next to go the way of the dinosaur.

More to the point of this thread though, journalists have brought this upon themselves through a lack of objectivity and integrity in their reporting. There will always be some level of bias but the past 20 - 30 years have seen a significant departure from what I'd consider acceptable.