What's the news across the nation?
We have got the information. - Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In
The big news this week was about a newspaper
The Washington Post downsized its staff by a third, including the sports and books departments. It was over 300 employees.
I know it stung. I was a survivor of a big lay-off back at the insurance company in '96. Looking back on it, it was worse to be a survivor than a victim. The survivors were advised to "work smarter, not harder," whatever that meant.
By the time I was downsized by the insurance company in 2002, it was more of a relief than anything else. I got another job within a month, and nine months later, I was hired for the job I retired from in 2024.
It wasn't really surprising that it happened to the Post because the Post has been bleeding money for years.
Jeff Bezos bought the paper several years ago, even though he had no experience in making a newspaper profitable. It turns out that even the most successful businessman on planet Earth can make a newspaper profitable in this Internet age without Wordle.
Because Bezos has so much money, the proglodytes yelped it was his fault that he had to lay off people from a business that depends upon readers and subscriptions when it had no readers or subscribers. Charles C.W. Cooke notes, "Jeff Bezos was supposed to pay for in perpetuity as penance for having been a useful member of society."
The library at my college, Hooty U, carried the Post and I read it instead of studying. When the internet came around, I could read The Post without going to the library. They used to have a feature called "Live Online" in which you could post a question to Post writer or newsmaker. One day, Buddy Ebsen was featured and I posted a question. Ol' Uncle Jed answered it! I'm going to make sure that is mentioned in my obituary.
The Post had many glorious moments. It was at its zenith in the early 70s when two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein from the City desk followed up on the burglary at The Watergate. Their reporting eventually led to the resignation of the President. You may have heard about it.
Some of the shine has come off those glorious days. In 2005, Mark Felt, a high-level FBI official, admitted he was "Deep Throat", the source of so many leads that Woodward and Bernstein used. He also admitted he didn't do it out of some obligation to save democracy, but rather because he wanted to stick it to Richard Nixon for not selecting him as the director of the FBI after J. Edgar Hoover died.
There were other issues with the paper. Such as Janet Cooke winning the Pulitzer Prize for a piece called "Jimmy's World" about a heroin addict who was eight years old. Problem: Not one word in the article was true.
No matter. The Post had writers like Thomas Boswell, David Broder, George Will, and among others. Even though I thought he was a mean-spirited loon, I enjoyed Herbert Block's (HERBLOCK) cartoons.
The Post was liberal, and they were pro-Democrats, but they were not snotty about it for the most part. At least back then.
But over the years, the Post joined up with the "progressive" crowd and became a national nag and scold. The "Democracy Dies In Darkness" kids chose to perform puppet shows for each other, until the center-right and right bounced. When Jeff Bezos declined to endorse a Presidential candidate in 2024, the "resistance" did its usual: a spastic hissy fit. They canceled subscriptions, and the Post went into a coma.
I've always loved reading the newspaper.
My first was my beloved Marietta Daily Journal. Soon, I graduated to The Atlanta Journal. They merged with their morning paper, The Atlanta Constitution, and became The AJC.
I was a subscriber for almost thirty years.
True, they were generally more liberal than I was (am). But they had Lewis Grizzard, Furman Bisher, and a great sports staff. Plus, they published Dave Barry's column with Jeff McNally's cartoon.
As time wore on, I began to realize it was odd that newspapers delivered the news to you by putting it in a bag and throwing it in your yard.
I canceled my subscription when the only thing I could remember reading was the "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip. The AJC is now available only on the internet.
Basically, what happened to The AJC is what happened to The Post. They waited too long to adjust to the changing times, and when they did, it was too late.
Now, The Post will join its old sister publication, Newsweek, as a shadow of its former self. It is almost a shame Richard Nixon didn't see this day.
