Karen Attiah didn’t stick around to get fired this week by The Washington Post. She’d already been dismissed, for cause, and a good one: She’d effectively spent the period following Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September taking quotes wildly out of context to effectively justify the murder.
You probably haven’t heard much from Attiah unless you’re a real devotee of hers or of Bluesky, the ersatz X alternative for people who can’t handle opinions that aren’t their own.
She posts quite freely over there, and she had some thoughts about the layoffs this week at her former paper: specifically, they’re all part of the white colonialism baked into the free press from before America was founded!
As for the Post employees not fired for cause: The paper announced earlier this week that it was slashing a third of its workforce and cutting entire sections, including sports, in a major shake-up.
While the paper’s financials aren’t publicly aired due to the fact that it’s a private concern — owned by Jeff Bezos — reports are that it lost $100 million alone in 2023, about 40 percent of the paper’s estimated value.
Furthermore, competitors like The New York Times have made a successful transition to covering news and being a general lifestyle outlet, while niche publications like Politico and The Hill have sucked up much of the Capitol Hill staffer/political junkie audience the paper used to garner.
In mid-2024, publisher Will Lewis fired executive editor Sally Buzbee and replaced her with Matt Murray, and warned staff that their product wasn’t influential or widely read. This caused much discord but apparently, no real change in direction, either politically or in the quality of the paper.
Whether or not the “firings will continue until standards improve” approach will work is anyone’s guess, although I don’t know anyone outside the liberal media sphere who believes Wednesday’s move made the Post any less readable or valuable.
Inside that sphere, however, there was much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, and even gnashing of hands and wringing of teeth. That’s how upset everyone was that Jeff Bezos wasn’t running the Post as if it were a charity cause — which would make it one of the least successful charities in Washington, it must be noted, and that’s an accomplishment.
There were no shortage of bad takes on this, particularly from former Post employees. However, Attiah’s is really something to behold, for more reasons than one.
Hellbound and Down 