On Wednesday morning, The Washington Post laid off roughly one-third of its staff, or about 300 people. It was nothing short of a bloodbath, inflicted by the Post‘s owner, Jeff Bezos, the fourth-richest person in the world. And for what? To what end? Here, Ashley Parker, a lifelong Post reader and former staffer, reflects on what’s being destroyed:
Last week, the paper’s foreign correspondents released a video aimed at Bezos, explaining how, as the Ukraine bureau chief, Siobhán O’Grady, puts it, they have been risking their life to cover wars, pandemics, civil uprisings, and so much more. In the two-minute video, often against the backdrop of explosions and other dangers, the journalists offer vignettes of their daily life: “I was there when a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian playground and killed nine kids.” “I was there when the Taliban tightened their grip on Afghanistan.” “I was there in January 2020, outside of Wuhan, when China shut it down to contain a mysterious virus.”
The power of the Post has always been its pulsing humanity, the zippy teamwork that has allowed each individual to produce something so much greater than they could have achieved on their own.
I was there. I was there. I was there. We were there.
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