Say it Ain't So, Bezos

Staff layoffs have been a recurring, devastating spectacle at newspapers for decades. I certainly witnessed more than a few of them while working at the New Haven Register. But the Register was never owned by a billionaire.

Jeff Bezos, who owns the cash cow Amazon, recently announced that in order to save money his Washington Post is laying off more than a third of the newspaper’s newsroom staff — over 300 reporters and editors.

The hardest-hit department is the Metro desk, which in the early 2000s boasted around 200 journalists who thoroughly covered the District of Columbia and the surrounding area. Now fewer than 20 are left.

The Post’s famed international staff is also being decimated, along with arts and literary reporting. And the renowned sports department is being completely eliminated.

My brother Ben, who lives in Alexandria, Va., one of those places the Post once covered, told me in an email that on most days “there are only four to six local stories — pretty poor for an area with so much going on. We had decided to stop delivery and just subscribe online. (A large part of that was to reduce our paper consumption.)”

“Then this!” he said of the latest cutbacks. “Part of me wants to support the local paper but we’re going to proceed with our stop-delivery plan. A guy who is worth $250 billion, made from all of us, can afford to take losses to maintain a high-quality paper in the nation’s capital. He should see it as his patriotic duty.”

During my past visits to Ben’s home the Post, at the center of the breakfast table, was a heavy, thick product with multiple sections. Its heft rivaled that of the New York Times. I shudder to think how thin it must be now. And I can only imagine how many other former readers have cancelled their subscriptions entirely. Ben has decided that in order to be at least somewhat informed he will go forward with that digital subscription.

The Post staff had hoped the paper’s reputation and high standards would be upheld when, in 2013, Bezos bought it from the revered Graham family. Remember their Watergate coverage? The Pentagon Papers?

Indeed, New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada, who worked for the Post for 17 years, wrote in a Times op-ed that when Bezos took over he stated: “Important institutions like the Post have an essence, they have a heart, they have a core.” He said it would be “crazy” to change it. “That’s part of what this place is. It’s part of what makes it so special.”

Lozada also quoted Bezos promising at that time: “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.” Bezos vowed the Post would still “have the courage to say: follow the story, no matter the cost.”

But then Bezos climbed into bed with Donald Trump. He cancelled his paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. Then his Amazon made a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration fund. And then Amazon ponied up $75 million to bankroll the widely-panned “Melania” documentary. That wasted money could have paid for a lot of the salaries of those laid-off reporters and editors.

All of this is yet another reason to boycott Amazon, which has driven so many small retailers, including independent bookstores, out of business.

Times reporter Erik Wemple wrote a poignant feature story focusing on one of Bezos’ victims — Martin Weil, who worked at the Post for 60 years as a local news reporter. For most of his career he worked the night shift because he insisted on tinkering with the articles. “I’d say, ‘Oh, that needs improvement.’” Who’s going to do that now? Nobody!

Weil’s layoff reminds me of the casualties I watched get the ax at the Register through the past decades. Here are just three of them: sportswriter Jon Stein, who lived and breathed Yale sports stories; Gene Gorlick, who wanted nothing else but to deliver fine photos; Abe Katz, who wrote science stories with wit and knowledge of the subjects. None of them ever found another job in journalism.

In 1989 I too fell victim to the bottom line. My thrice-weekly Register column was ended and I was sent packing. Eight long years later I finally was re-hired there, and continued as a reporter and columnist until I decided to accept a buyout offer in 2020. But I will never forget those eight depressing years.

Follow-up number one: Colorado authorities have announced they found no evidence that “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson died of anything other than suicide in 2005. His widow Anita Thompson had raised doubts about the circumstances of his death. Given her slim material, I was not surprised to read this outcome.

Follow-up number two: The “Trump chalkster” has not responded to my offer to come out and show himself, to explain why for years he has written pro-Trump messages on the sidewalks of New Haven and Hamden. Come on, chalk man— my invitation for a breakfast meeting still stands!