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It seems like the problem with WaPo is that it’s constantly losing money, and has been since well before Bezos bought it. This makes it difficult to be hands-of
by nickff 1y ago
It seems like the problem with WaPo is that it’s constantly losing money, and has been since well before Bezos bought it. This makes it difficult to be hands-off for (at least) two reasons: he can’t just put it in a conventional trust, because he has to constantly give the organization money (which is abnormal for such a trust), and (secondly) in order to be sustainable, WaPo needs to be significantly changed so that it stops hemorrhaging money.
- embedding-shape 1y agoIt's almost like trying to run a newspaper the same way you run a for-profit online marketplace isn't the greatest of ideas. Who could've known...
- kridsdale3 1y agoComing Soon: WaPo Marketplace. Search for a story and get 10000 results from writers in China like LIOPOSFO and XIGISNN that look almost like the genuine article!
- summa_tech 1y agoFortunately, they all come from the same LLM article factory as the western-branded ones. So, no loss.
- terminalshort 1y agoNo, they will come from Deepseek and have very different opinions on Taiwan
- platevoltage 1y agoLIOPOSFO actually got banned from the platform unfortunately. They did get a new writer named LIOPOSFI who is very similar though.
- afavour 1y agoI’d say the UK’s Guardian newspaper is a useful example here. It’s been owned by the Scott Trust since the 1930s: https://www.theguardian.com/about/history https://www.theguardian.com/about/history And it has survived without continual extra investment. Possible that WaPo is just managed badly.
- notahacker 1y agoIn fairness, when it comes to surviving the modern media landscape the Guardian seems to be good at online, but has the distinct advantage of the UK having no other remotely left leaning broadsheets or even middle market tabloids. Since Lebvedev destroyed the Independent, it's basically the Guardian or the Mirror which is a trashy rag, and the nominal centrist papers are owned by Murdoch and the Daily Mail General Trust. Not sure how that translates into US media context. The second lesson from UK media is that the Daily Mail General Trust is usually assumed to be a vehicle for whatever the owning dynasty wants, despite encompassing multiple newspapers with different editorial stances (this is also certainly historically accurate: in the 1930s the man who set up the trust was writing letters to the PM offering editorial support in exchange for being allowed to veto any government appointments the PM wanted to make). So I don't think a trust structure alone will make people believe Bezos has no influence over it.
- metabagel 1y agoAnecdotally, The Guardian has a lot of U.S. readers. I regularly read and donate to The Guardian. Their U.S. and California coverage is very good and seems to be continually improving. Axios has an article about The Guardian's success in the U.S., but I don't have access behind the paywall. https://www.axios.com/2025/05/06/the-guardian-us-expansion https://www.axios.com/2025/05/06/the-guardian-us-expansion Better resource: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/11/Guardian_Annual_Report_24_25.pdf https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/11/Guardian_Annual_Report...
- platevoltage 1y agoI'm one of them. I don't love that I have to overseas to find reliable news on my own country.
- clort 1y agoBezos has so much money that he could simply drop a billion or five into the trust and never need to see any return from it.