The Washington Post steps back from Silicon Valley when it matters most

Proclaiming that we live in a technology-centric society de-saturates it.

Software, especially machine learning and artificial intelligence, combined with advanced manufacturing, has brought technology to street corners, schools, offices, factories, and even agricultural fields. This technology, most of which was created in Silicon Valley, is worn on your wrist, carried in your pocket, and integrated into the movies you watch, and perhaps even the music you listen to. It is certainly the means by which your Amazon package is ordered, sorted and delivered to your doorstep.

It has transformed its founders, CEOs, and middle managers into royalty-like figures, whose wealth and political influence reflect the Gilded Age. Seven of the world’s 10 richest people can tie their fortunes directly to technology. Jeff Bezos, co-founder, chairman and owner of The Washington Post, ranks third, behind Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, according to Forbes, which tracks wealth and the people who own it. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer round out the list.

At this point, the Bezos-owned Washington Post canceled its coverage of them and the tech industry in general as part of a wide slew of layoffs affecting more than 300 people. The team comprising technology, science, health and business has been cut by more than half from 80 to 33 people, according to technology reporter Drew Harwell. The technology office alone cut 14 people. Its San Francisco office is a coincidence.

Among those affected are reporters covering Amazon, artificial intelligence, internet culture and investigations. The newspaper also laid off staff covering the media industry (and which had previously reported on Bezos owning its own newspaper).

The Washington Post cut its entire sports desk and nearly eliminated its foreign coverage teams, including its Middle East bureau, and correspondents and their editors covering Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Turkey and others. It closed its book division, decimated cultural coverage and the D.C. metro area, and laid off all reporters and editors who covered race and ethnic issues nationally.

Coverage of technology is never more important than social, economic and geopolitical issues. But never before have the people who exercise such enormous influence over global geopolitics and economics been so directly responsible for stopping the global flow of information on this topic.

The world is focused on technology and associated with the growth of GDP – or decline – of great powers. The most powerful tech executives are asking the public to direct their attention elsewhere.

Matt Murray, executive editor of The Post, framed the layoffs as a reboot of sorts aimed at reaching readers and ultimately achieving profitability, according to The New York Times, which included comments he made to employees.

“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to be more relevant to people’s lives in a more crowded, competitive and complex media landscape,” he reportedly said during a Zoom meeting with staff.

It’s no secret that The Post has lost money and subscribers in recent years, in some cases due to policies instituted or supported by Bezos. For example, his directives to end presidential endorsements by The Post’s editorial board, and to cancel a draft of an article supporting Kamala Harris, reportedly led to “hundreds of thousands” of canceled subscriptions, according to the New York Times. It reportedly posted losses of $100 million in 2024, partly due to cancellations.

Web traffic has also declined. Daily visits fell to about 3 million by mid-2024, from 22.5 million in January 2021, Semaphore reported.

The Post cut its staff from 1,000 to fewer than 800 last spring, with CEO Will Lewis citing a $100 million loss from the previous year.

Layoffs at The Post, of course, don’t happen in a vacuum. (The media industry, and not just the legacy players, has been plagued by fragmented audiences and changes in Google search algorithms that have directed readers away from media outlets and toward AI-generated answers.)

However, the size, scope and location of those axe strikes is worth examining. Especially given the shift in media ownership over the past 15 years.

Bezos’s 2013 acquisition of The Washington Post for $250 million was met with a mixture of skepticism and hope, by weary journalists who had endured mergers, layoffs, and the growing troubles of transitioning from a print-only to a digital-dominated media industry.

His acquisition became part of a broader trend as billionaires, many with backgrounds in technology, snap up beleaguered media organizations that have eroded much of the previous public-private equity cycle.

A few years after Bezos bought The Post, Laurene Powell Jobs bought The Atlantic, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff bought Time Inc., and pharmaceutical executive Patrick Soon-Shiong acquired the Los Angeles Times.

Bezos, like Benioff and Sun-Shiung (who also blocked his newspaper’s endorsement of Harris), moved closer to Trump after he won the 2024 election. His spaceflight company Blue Origin relies on federal contracts, and Amazon has faced increased scrutiny under previous administrations.

Lewis was reportedly not present to oversee the staff cuts and changes at The Post (Murray told Fox News that the CEO “had a lot of things to take care of today”). Neither was Bezos. As his newspaper prepared to cut a third of its staff, Bezos spent Monday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Florida, where he led him on a tour of Blue Origin’s facilities.

Less than 48 hours later, The Washington Post fired the journalist who wrote a report on Blue Origin.

Darkness seems to be creeping in.