“The buyout program that the Publish has created is neither as beneficiant because the Publish has made it out to be nor actually voluntary,” Publish Guild management says in an announcement. “The Publish has refused to increase eligibility to all workers reasonably than concentrating on sure departments; present continued entry to medical health insurance; or bolster pensions for long-tenured workers.
Guild management provides: “Our hard-working colleagues are going to lose their jobs due to the short-sighted enterprise choices made by administration over the previous few years.… The buyout program is funded virtually solely by Publish workers’ retirement funds, and we’ll proceed to demand a program that works for us.”
In the meantime, there’s been lingering frustration with Buzbee’s low-key management fashion and questions on her imaginative and prescient for the Publish, issues which have solely intensified amid the information of the buyouts, a reversal of the unprecedented newsroom enlargement that Buzbee has helped oversee. Progress, greater than something, appeared to be her mandate. Which makes it much more unclear what the mission will likely be as soon as these cuts shake out. Some folks have complained on to Stonesifer that Buzbee is a part of the issue, in keeping with two staffers.
“Now we have an editor who doesn’t know what she’s doing, a writer who didn’t know what he was doing, and an proprietor who took his eye off the ball,” one of many staffers tells me.
It took some effort to get Bezos to concentrate. His go to in January got here as the connection between Buzbee and Ryan had grown more and more untenable, and simply earlier than he visited, I’m instructed, Buzbee personally reached out to Bezos to debate the scenario. (The Publish declined to touch upon Buzbee’s outreach to Bezos.) Round this time, Bezos was additionally alerted to the breakdown between the editor and writer by Bob Woodward, the legendary Publish journalist who helped break the Watergate scandal. Woodward and Bezos have recognized one another for many years; in 2013, when Bezos visited the Publish shortly after changing into its new proprietor, the 2 had a non-public breakfast collectively, and Woodward has publicly acknowledged that he’s communicated with in regards to the Publish’s current troubles.
When Bezos purchased the paper in 2013, he mentioned he sought to “work out a brand new golden period on the Publish,” during which it wanted “not simply to outlive, however to develop.” The aspiration appeared to be to grow to be the world’s main information web site, a mission echoed within the 2021 appointment of Buzbee, who’d spent her complete profession on the Related Press. “I got here to the Publish on the proper time the place it’s attempting to grow to be extra of a world information group,” Buzbee instructed me one yr into her tenure. Ryan, then nonetheless writer, instructed me the newsroom “added extra roles”—over 150—”since she arrived in a single yr than any yr in our historical past.” Buzbee was attempting to make the remainder of the paper as robust as her predecessor Marty Baron had made nationwide politics and investigations, creating two new departments, local weather and wellness, and prioritizing know-how and worldwide information.
Through the newest city corridor, Nationwide editor Matea Gold, mentioned a objective for 2024 was proudly owning protection about “politics, our divided nation, and threats to democracy”—however then rattled off a bunch of different corners of the newsroom, together with sports activities, well being and science, in addition to tradition, arts, media, and leisure. As one Publish reporter put it to me, “We thought they have been most likely simply going to return out and say that every one they cared about was politics. As an alternative, they mentioned we care about all of you, however then couldn’t articulate a imaginative and prescient for what that meant.”
The Publish’s nationwide political protection stays robust, however Joe Biden’s White Home has made for comparatively boring studying following the leaky Trump group, rife with backstabbing and infighting that performed out within the press. “We knew we’d lose some of us with Trump, however…we thought we’d have the ability to maintain onto them, that the standard of the work we have been doing in different areas would maintain them. It didn’t maintain,” Stonesifer instructed employees when she introduced the employees reductions final month. (To not point out, the Publish—already competing towards the likes of the Occasions, Politico, and Axios throughout the Trump years—is now additionally dealing with stiff competitors on the congressional entrance from Punchbowl, whose cofounder, Jake Sherman, was simply profiled this week within the Publish’s personal Model part.)
“The Publish nonetheless will get loads of wins, however not as many as earlier than, and the management doesn’t appear to know what they wish to do,” says one staffer. “Greater than something, 2024 needs to be the yr the place somebody on the Publish at a senior stage delineates: What can we wish to be?” says one other staffer. “Are we going to have a marketing strategy that hinges on politics and scales again different issues? Are we going to accumulate new issues? There’s gotta be some solutions on issues which are above reporters’ pay grades.”
The Publish hasn’t been shy about the necessity to improve site visitors and subscriptions, as Stonesifer and Buzbee have each acknowledged within the city halls. Digital subscribers, at the moment 2.5 million, dropped greater than 15% since 2021, in keeping with the Publish, and general digital viewers declined by 28% over the identical interval. Just lately, the Viewers group has been intently finding out viewers and site visitors on a desk-by-desk foundation, I’m instructed, placing collectively shows for numerous groups—known as “desk dives”—during which they focus on trendlines for the part and what readers are searching for.
Bezos himself gave employees an announcement of editorial priorities final month, when he put out a uncommon notice to the newsroom following “an invigorating 48 hours” on the paper. He shouted out the “nice and essential work from members of our Ukraine reporting group, the Local weather group, Politics group, Opinions, and Properly+Being” that he discovered about throughout his go to. Notably, areas anticipated to be most affected by the buyouts—similar to Metro, which the Publish is aiming to trim by almost 1 / 4, in addition to audio and video groups—weren’t talked about.
