The Washington Post is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C, and considered the most-widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area. The newspaper has a large international audience, with daily broadsheet editions being printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. While the paper has published many Pulitzer Prize winning pieces, it has struggled both financially and editorially. The paper was purchased by financier Eugene Meyer in 1933 out of bankruptcy and continued by successors Katharine and Phil Graham. In October 2013, the Graham family sold the newspaper to Nash Holdings, a holdings company owned by Jeff Bezos.
The paper has drowned in scandals, including an incident where national political correspondent Dave Weigel called the workplace a “clusterfu**.” Other reporters pushed back that the place was filled with many terrific people and that they are “proud” to work for the paper. This outpour was encouraged by executive editor Sally Buzbee, who sent a memo reiterating workplace policies to all Washington Post reporters. Other reporters, including Felicia Somnez and Jose Del Real, pushed back at the cruelty on Post reporters/colleagues and the miscommunications directed at the editor. In one specific incident, reporter Taylor Lorenz explained how an editorial miscommunication resulted in an error on a hit piece that CNN reporter Oliver Darcy was also covering. There has been an outpour of Post drama spilling on Twitter, with staffer problems stacked one on top of the next. Some have even suggested that the “personal antics” of Washington Post reporters often overshadow the journalism. The social media use of reporters has been tested and measured throughout new social media policies, including other publications such as the New York Times.
The Washington Post has consistently tried to share newsroom values and how employees should treat one another, adding that colleagues should respect one another and avoid attacking either face to face or online. They ask that employees respect and do not inhibit any of the rights to raise legitimate workplace issues and call out issues honestly.
Other reporters have broken down the social media accounts of Washington Post reporters, including how some reporters consider the workplace as one that is “collegial.” Reporters have blocked one another, sent tweets falsely accusing of clout chasing, bullying, cruelty, and a barrage of online abuse.
The Washington Post has even been sued by their own reporters for being prevented from covering sexual-misconduct stories. The Post was accused of moving away from trending headlines and updated social media guidelines in order to follow specific political narratives.
The Washington Post is known for its slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and has not seemed so concerned for its own beliefs after trying to recover as a news organization. While the Washington Post famously exposed and uncovered the Watergate scandal (which resulted in the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon), the paper has moved away from big political headlines in recent years. Without research or evaluation, the publication quickly dismissed the coronavirus lab-leak theory as a “debunked” conspiracy and rejected the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the months leading to the 2020 presidential election. Their reporters refused to cover any of the political problems on the same level or to the same degree as they did during the Nixon era.
The Washington Post has also been forced to address the 2018 op-ed penned by actress Amber Heard, which became the center of the explosive defamation lawsuit launched by ex-husband Johnny depp. A jury found Amber Heard liable for defamation and acting with “malice” in the controversial article, where she claimed she was the victim of domestic abuse. It was revealed in the six-week trial that the ACLU had ghostwritten her Op-Ed and that the piece against Depp was strictly defamatory. After the trial, critics claimed that the Post should be held accountable for publishing the op-ed in the first place. Others went on to say that the Post mischaracterized their coverage of the trial and flagrantly misrepresented specific earnings for editors throughout the trial for dramatic effect. The Washington Post continued to lie and did not contact names mentioned in stories covering the Depp-Heard trial.
The Post has continued to correct and relabel specific political stories, where it reads “editors note.” Reporter Taylor Lorenz has continued to set the record straight with the Washington Post, citing “miscommunication” against her editor and a bad faith on her part.
Others have pushed to question whether or not the Post reporters are violating their editorial policies in order to push specific narratives in their stories. Readers have also complained that the Washington Post is entirely out of touch and not representative of what the American citizens want to read. WaPo has turned to extensions of liberal policies and a platform of low-quality journalism, including avoidances on topics of COVID-19, BLM protests, workplace harassment, the MeToo movement, and the presidential election.
While CNN, AP, and PBS are frequently quoted overseas, the Washington Post has been one of the main newspaper sources about America. Their views have been so particularly anti-America and Anti-Trump, that the rest of the political antics have followed. The politics is rampant and Bezos is using one giant global media platform to make a gutter rag out of American news. The Post is but a shell of what it once was.
We’ve moved from reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who led the Watergate scandal to the workplace drama of Taylor Lorenz, where Twitter is the peak of Washington Post trends. What happened to real news?