Is The Washington Post in full-scale collapse? A recent look at the numbers provides a fairly convincing answer to that question.
According to the report, not only is the Post losing $100 million a year, but it lost over half of its online engagement by the end of 2023. The signs were already there by mid-year, and the worst has come to pass.
This is from Bonchie, “The Washington Post Is in Full-Scale Collapse,” RedState, January 5, 2024.
Bonchie goes on to write:
Having a billionaire sugar daddy [Jeff Bezos] has helped mask some of the issues plaguing the Post, but the tide can only be held back so long. To lose over 50 percent of its online viewership is catastrophic for an outlet with such high overhead costs. Subscriber numbers have also nosedived throughout the Biden administration.
I’m reminded of my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies, Citizen Kane. I actually found a source decades ago, way before the web, that had the dialogue printed out and it was on my cork board at work for decades. It’s a beautiful exercise in numeracy.
Here’s the dialogue:
Walter Parks Thatcher (Charles Kane’s legal guardian): Don’t you think it’s rather unwise to continue this philanthropic enterprise, this Inquirer that’s costing you a million dollars a year?
Charles Foster Kane: You’re right, Mr. Thatcher. I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in [pause] 60 years.
Let’s say that Bezos’s losses rise to $200 million a year and stay there. His net worth in 2022 was $167 billion. So if he makes only a 1% return on his assets, that’s $1.67 billion a year. At that rate, he’ll have to close the Washington Post in– never.
There’s one other big difference besides the fact that for Bezos it’s rounding error and for Citizen Kane it wasn’t. I think I can figure out from the movie what Citizen Kane’s motivation was for running the Inquirer the way he did. I’ve never had a clue about what Jeff Bezos’s motivation is in owning the Washington Post.
READER COMMENTS
Andrew_FL
Jan 6 2024 at 4:03pm
Kane is based on William Randolph Hearst. Hearst lost money to poach circulation from his rival Pulitzer and gain political influence. He was able to do so in large part because of inherited wealth. Bezos on the other hand is able to toss away money because he created an enormous amount of consumer value. So Bezos wins over Hearst/Kane at least in that respect.
Jim Glass
Jan 6 2024 at 5:55pm
Lamar Hunt co-created the American Football League in 1959 after the NFL gave its new expansion Dallas franchise to Clint Murchinson instead of him. Lamar became owner of the AFL’s Dallas Texans (now Kansas City Chiefs) and cited Kane’s line when a reporter asked him how long he could keep losing a million (1960) dollars a year on the team, reportedly answering “at that rate I’ll be in trouble in 142 years”.
His motivation was a combination of spite and profit, and succeeded big-time both ways. A tough combo to top!
Which could be a good thing for journalism and the world at large. Print newspapers were going broke courtesy of the Internet, headed into the dumpster of history back in the 2010s, when the deeply struggling NY Times found the magic formula for financial salvation — tear down the wall between the sales department and newsroom, have marketing adopt the Buzzfeed-Facebook algorithm (literally) that maximizes clicks by pounding on the emotions of ‘fear’ and ‘injustice’ especially among women, print the stories that produce the most clicks.
Thus the formerly staid “Grey Lady” started pumping out stories like Maternal Instinct Is a Myth That Men Created, The 1619 Project, and such ilk in unending amount, as the SJW journalists brought in from Buzzfeed (literally) to get the most $$$ from the algorithm took over, and purged the senior staff who believed in detailed stories and free speech to protect their own “safety”. (Because it is so dangerous to work at a newspaper like the NYT!)
The Economist just published a long piece, When the New York Tines Lost Its Way, detailing the entire tale. It’s by James Bennet, current ‘Lexington’ editor of the Economist, former editor of The Atlantic, and the NY Times editorial page editor until he was purged by the mob in 2020 (to protect the safety of the women.) Yes it’s long, but I really advise: read the whole thing if the state of journalism matters to you, in an election year, and with wars going on and all.
So … I submit that the WaPo getting knocked offline could be a good thing. Jeff could make it official by rebuilding it’s wall between the newsroom and the click farms, make up the financial loss out of his pocket change, start restoring the integrity of journalism, and create an example of a billionaire making the world a bit of a better place.
But I don’t expect it. Zillionaires typically buy prestigious newspapers and magazines purely as vanity projects. I haven’t noticed any difference with Jeff and the WaPo.
David Henderson
Jan 6 2024 at 8:28pm
Good thoughts, especially about NYT.
I didn’t know the Lamar Hunt story. Thanks.
Vivian Darkbloom
Jan 7 2024 at 5:56am
Indeed. There are a lot of people interested in whether Taylor Swift might be queer and the NYT knows it. I’m not a billionaire, but I’m doing my little bit to combat it by not linking to that “Op-Ed”.
Ben Y
Jan 6 2024 at 10:19pm
Bezos likely bought it because it gains him influence and leverage in Washington, at least implicitly.
If their engagement continues to fall like, he’ll likely lose both and just cut his losses.
This isn’t a money problem, it’s an influence problem.
David Seltzer
Jan 7 2024 at 6:13pm
Rosebud!
Jose Pablo
Jan 7 2024 at 7:38pm
Well Mr. Bezos seems to be pretty good at picking money losing businesses and holding them for the long term.
Amazon North America and Amazon International (the business Amazon is better known for, although, certainly, not the business that has made Bezos uber rich) lost more than 10.6 billion in 2022. Enough to keep the Washington Post alive for 106 years …
In a good year (let’s say 2021) the business of selling goods online all over the world made an operating profit of 6.3b out of 407 b of sales. A scary 1.5% margin (pretax), the business equivalent of living on the edge.
Certainly not the one to be afraid of losing 0.1b a year …
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