WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - Jeff Bezos Gutting The Washington Post Is A Dark Day For Journalism + The One Loophole For A Third Trump Term 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.360 This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.240 by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:11.280 frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.800 fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.759 five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.880 Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.480 slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.080 your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.600 nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. 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Right are We are 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:01.160 now in the ninety six hour window of Super Bowl, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:08.000 of the sort of the Super Bowl extravaganza. And I'm 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.000 tempted to say that the Super Bowl hype feels lessish. 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.560 And I don't know if I'm saying that because I'm 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.400 buying into the premise that they're you know, we don't 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.040 have the traditional stars in the Super Bowl right now. 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.320 There's no Patrick Mahomes and there's no Tom Brady, and 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.440 there's no Josh Allen. There's no Lamar Jackson, no Aaron Rodgers. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.960 So I hate to like pile on on that, but 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:36.280 there does feel this feels less hyped or am I 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.720 just accepting you know, am I putting my own bias 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:40.960 on it? 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:41.360 I will. 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.000 I will accept the premise that I might be because 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.160 the Super Bowl doesn't overly excite me, and I think 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.360 out of you know, my great fears that it won't be competitive, 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.600 But I certainly hope we will have a competitive more 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.240 to say about the super Bowl, as I always promise, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.040 I want to keep the sports to the end. I've 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.040 made a few references and had a few rants about 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.760 the Washington Post, but we now know what happened, and 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.400 I guess you could say, I'm this is my official 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:17.160 obituary for the Washington Post because my frustration on this. 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.720 This is not and I think different people go about 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.760 this a different way. I do not believe Jeff Bezos's 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:27.280 job was to be a to treat the Washington Post 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:31.639 as a charity case. So I'm not you know, I'm 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:33.800 not asking him to lose money to keep the Washington 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.480 Post up and running. I'm asking him to be honest 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.320 about what he's up to. I'm asking him to be 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.960 more straightforward about his motivation, and I'm asking him to 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:50.120 acknowledge that he The question is did he hire the 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.320 wrong people or did he actually make a business decision 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.360 that has nothing to do with the business of media 0:03:58.120 --> 0:03:59.160 and everything to do. 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:00.800 With the business of space. 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:02.840 Before I get to it, but I want to start 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:10.080 off with associating myself with something Jeff Bezos said in 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.840 twenty thirteen. Thanks to my friend Don van Ada, one 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.200 of the great sports reporters out there, does a lot 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.960 of great work over at ESPN, and it's been everywhere 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:23.400 times you name it, he re upped this. It's an 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.120 important quote, and I want to quote. 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:26.560 From Jeff Bezos. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.039 So, when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post two hundred 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.360 and fifty million dollars in twenty thirteen, he did a 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.840 Q and A in the newsroom with legendary Washington Post 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:41.280 reporter Bob Woodward. And Woodward asked Bezos in front of 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.080 all of his Jeff Bezos new employees at the Washington Post, 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.040 a simple question, Why'd you do it? 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.080 Let me read you Jeff Bezos's answer. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.320 In twenty thirteen, I finally concluded that I could provide 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.799 runway financial runway because I don't think you can keep 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.880 shrinking the business. You could be profitable and shrinking, and 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.360 that's a survival strategy, but it ultimately leads to irrelevance 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:12.760 at best, and at worst, it leads to extinction. In 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.200 some ways, I almost want to drop the mic and 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.280 leave right like, there you go, what's about to happen 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:24.000 to the Washington Post? Exactly what Jeff Bezos said he 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.040 wasn't going to do. So I wanted to start off 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.640 with the Jeff Bezos quote so that as I read you, 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:33.840 Matt Murray, and I want to say this about Matt 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.240 Murray's the executive editor of the Washington Post. Matt Murray's 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:43.880 had to be the face of all of this. It 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.520 sucks that anybody has to be the face of this. 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.320 But what really sucks is he didn't make these decisions. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.520 He has to execute a strategy and execute decisions that 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.480 were made by two people who did not face the 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:07.040 public or their employees. So you know, look, I do 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.839 not I feel poor Matt Murray's been hung out to dry. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.240 And you could say, well, he could have resigned well, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.440 and look, everybody's got pay bills, so be very careful. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.359 It's always easy to say when you don't have that job, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:23.760 to say you could quit, you could do this well, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:30.240 you know your circumstance is your circumstance. If you have 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.919 the luxury to do it, great, and you think you 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.840 can make a statement, kudos, But not everybody does. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:39.920 Matt Murray is a. 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.320 Great, capable editor, managing editor, editor of a newsroom, runs 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.479 a newsroom. He is not in charge of the business strategy. 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:53.080 He executes the strategy. So I say this because I 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.200 don't I don't want to see Matt Murray demonized. You 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.640 want to be angry, be angry at Jeff Bezos for 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.400 hiring Will Lewis, and you don't even have to be 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:03.280 angry at him hiring Will Lewis. What you should be 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.280 angry at is that Will Lewis isn't being shoved out 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.040 the door along with all these employees. Because Will Lewis's 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.720 strategy has been a disaster. Every move he's made has 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.520 cost the Post money, cost the Post readers, cost the 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.680 Post relevance. So the idea that Lewis's job is safe, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.040 but three hundred Washington Post staffers are being shown the 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.320 door because hey, this is you know, oh you know, 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.840 we just no. The media business is hard. But this 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:39.640 was a choice. But anyway, Jeff Bezos in twenty thirteen said, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:41.760 you do this, and you know you may go to 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.160 extinct irrelevance. So let me read you today's memo that 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.240 I'm sure was approved by Will Lewis and Jeff Bezos. 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.200 And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:55.960 I'm going to read a few paragraphs, so this one. 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.200 These moves include substantial newsroom reductions, impacting nearly all news departments. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.160 For the immediate future, we will concentrate on areas that 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:09.560 demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact and that resonate with readers. Politics, 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:15.200 national affairs, people power and trends, national security in DC 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:20.000 and abroad. Forces shaping the future, including science, health, medicine, technology, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.520 climate in business, journalism that empowers people to take action, 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.520 from advice to wellness, revelatory investigations, and what's capturing attention 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.800 in culture, online and daily life. So that's the that's 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.760 the mission. Apparently let me continue, but we take these 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.280 actions with clarity of purpose. The need has never been 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.880 more urgent to reposition the post. A more flexible, sustainable 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:50.240 model will help us better navigate unprecedented volatility, competition, technological change, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.080 news consumption habits, and cost pressure. As you know, we 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.200 have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.400 affected us multiple in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.040 along with peer periotic constraints on other kinds of spending. 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.720 We have concluded that the company structure is to root 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.880 it in a different era when we were a dominant 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.160 local print product. This restructure will help to secure our 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.120 future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.520 stability moving forward. Then he keeps going we are far 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.440 from alone and reevaluate our model and rethinking how we operate. 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.320 The ecosystem of news and information on and off platform 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.719 is changing radically. News consumers enjoy more variety, voices, of 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:30.880 platforms and options than ever before. In just the last 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.679 five years, multiple startups, even individuals have created meaningful products 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.520 that draw at tension and generate impact at low cost. 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.880 And it goes on to blame search and blame all 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.839 these other structural issues that were issues in twenty thirteen, 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.800 that were issues when Marty Barron took over. So the 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.600 point being there, of course there have been issues. These 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.760 are issues that the New York Times confronted, and as 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.439 Nate Silver, you should check out his substance he did. 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.840 He noted that both you know, essentially this gets it 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.760 to the real business decision that Jeff Bezos made. But 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.600 he did a terrific sort of showing of that. There 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.400 was this study of sort of like impact, sort of 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.840 judging how much how much impact your news stories had, 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:18.960 and the Times in the Post were essentially neck and neck, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.960 neck and neck. It's sort of you know, whether it 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.400 was attention impact, how often their articles were however you 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.360 wanted to measure. But there was a pretty good measurement 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.960 that he was using to do this, and I wasn't 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:35.079 familiar with the specific metric he was using, but it 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:37.680 made the larger point that both the Times in the 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.480 Post were sort of essentially in the same place late 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.520 twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, even into twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.640 you know, the Times like the Post experienced you know, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.160 this this sort of softening of interest in Washington news 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.840 with the incoming Biden administration, right, and Joe Biden being 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.680 sort of catatonic for most of his term. Obviously meant 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.119 that the attention economy when it came to Washington politics 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:11.560 was less interested. The Times diversified, right, the Times has 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.439 all had, you know, decided to use the opportunity when 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.880 there was attention, and they they went big, right. Yeah, 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.400 they cut their sports department, but only after they bought 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:28.000 the Athletic Okay, the leading national sports news organization in 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:33.880 the country. So they actually went bigger on sports, not smaller, right. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.640 And they went with a brand, and they took a brand, 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.599 and they doubled down on a brand, you know. And 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.640 they've done this with Wirecutter, and they've done this with 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:45.439 their recipes, and they've done this with games. The Washington 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:50.800 Post was perfectly positioned to potentially do something similar on 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:56.760 a variety of fronts. This is among the wealthiest metropolitan 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.000 areas in the country. You have some of the most 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:05.280 well read people. People pay for news. Not every community 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.040 is got to, is my god. They charge you for 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.520 everything around here, right, people are buying newsletters from punch 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.800 Bowl and buying pro political pro subscriptions and national journal 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.240 and hotline passes and all sorts of things. So this 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:23.479 is a market that is very comfortable paying for information. 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:34.439 But Jeff Bezos had a problem. His number one competitor 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:41.439 for space contracts is Elon Musk. Elon Musk had had 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.080 all sorts of ties to the two front runners for 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.959 president in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, Ron 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:57.480 DeSantis and Donald Trump, and Elon Musk was leveraging those 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.920 relationships in any way possible. And when he realized Disantas 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.880 was going nowhere, right, He's eventually. 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:04.520 Sidled right up to Trump. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.800 If there is a competitor in the private space race, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:20.520 to Elon Musk, it's Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin. The 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.600 only way to build a private space company is to 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:29.400 have access to the government's resources NASA and all sorts 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:34.079 of infrastructure. All right, we may be in the privatizing 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.840 era of space, but the structure is still sort of government. 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.240 You're very dependent upon government, and you need access to government. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.640 And if Donald Trump just shut the door on Jeff Bezos, 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.600 Blue Origin would be just sort of stuck here, maybe 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.280 have to work with another country if they wanted to 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.360 get up and stuff like that. So he looked at 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.680 the look I think his initial decision to purchase. Now, 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.440 when you sort of everything looks obvious now in hindsight. 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:05.720 So why did twenty thirteen Jeff Basos. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:06.240 By the Washington Post. 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:08.199 We know what he said. I told you up top 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:14.079 what he said, but he still like, why did he 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:15.920 think it was a good idea? Well, if you recall 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:21.560 at the time, right, I believe Amazon had just made 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.080 the decision to create a basically open a second headquarters, 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.240 and they made the decision to open it in Crystal 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:28.920 City of Virginia. 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:31.440 Why did they do that? 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:36.360 Because the most important government contracts to AWS right, the 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:43.640 arguably the more profitable arm of Amazon, rather than the 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.520 product most of us interact with on a daily or 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.600 some of you on an hourly basis, are Pentagon contracts. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.120 So Amazon made the decision it needed to be close 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:01.400 to Washington. Look, I'll be honest, as a political anthropologists, 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.880 the way I looked at it, I was I was rooting. 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.720 I remember remember there was this whole campaign who was 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.600 going to get the second headquarters in? Amazon did a 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:18.480 very public, almost American Idol style RFPs right request for 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:23.520 proposals from various cities, and they had certain things they needed. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:28.280 They needed easy access to public transportation, among you, affordable housing, 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.160 all sorts of it, but it was public transporation was 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:35.200 a big thing, There's no doubt. I remember I was 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.960 hoping he'd picked Saint Louis. And you've probably heard me 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.200 a few times. I'm obsessed with Saint Louis for a 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:42.000 variety of reasons. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.640 You know, Saint Louis was I ate. 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:53.040 The America all sort of chipped in to figure out, hey, 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:59.320 we can't let Detroit spiral, and we got investment in Detroit, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.560 and we got Wall Street interested in Detroit, and Detroit 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:04.440 is in better shape today than it's been in a while. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.240 We've not had that same you know, there was a time, 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.440 right Saint Louis hosted an Olympics nineteen oh four. I 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.400 believe it was because it was the gateway to the West, Right, 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.600 Saint Louis was the most important, Say, before there was 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.040 LA in San Francisco, there were Saint Louis. Right, it 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.000 was the western frontier and it was an extraordinarily important city. 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.120 And even when I was growing up, right, you know, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.960 it was a hub and had lots of corporate headquarters there, right, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:39.119 and isaer Bush being the most iconic, but TWA Transworld 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.160 Airlines that was a huge airline that was not a 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.400 small airline, it was a big airline. And it is withered, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:48.960 and there's a we can There's a variety of reasons. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.400 Saint Louis is one of those. When you if you 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:56.480 ever wanted to understand how the interstate highway system really 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.920 did segregate communities and destroy urban communities, go traveling downtown 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.880 Saint Louis when you go, and I believe it's fifty five. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.840 If I have it wrong, I hope my friends and 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:10.480 Saint Louis will will correct me. 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:11.080 I've got some. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:15.639 I've got off and on ties to Saint Louis, and 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:16.359 I'll leave it at that. 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.199 Some of you will know what I'm referring to. 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.000 But it's one of those that it's just ugly. It's terrible, 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.640 like you know that. You know, there was a lot 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:31.280 of urban planners in the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:38.800 who essentially used African American communities, you know, just almost 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.479 either bulldozed them, divided them in half. But it was 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.840 you know, if you were in a if you were 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.320 fighting a not in my backyard mindset, you know, the 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.159 black communities lost every one of them. And this was 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.240 all over. You can read the Powerbroker about Robert Moses 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.960 and what he did New York and how this was done. 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.400 You can just see how the interstate system was built 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.600 in Saint Louis. You can see remnants of this in 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.600 New Orleans and some other of these cities that this 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:19.119 has been done. 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That's getsold dot Com promo code 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:40.879 toodcast for thirty percent off. So I was really but 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:42.520 there was a lot of reasons. So Saint Louis, I 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.000 think needed a shot in the arm. But I also 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.040 thought it was a Hey, this is a it still 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.040 has some wealth to it. It still is a highly 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:56.520 educated community, and more importantly, it's it's a more politically 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.960 diverse community. And I would thought the tech industry needed 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.320 more buy in from Red America. So, hey, don't you 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.840 know you're going from Seattle? All right, why don't you 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:09.000 you know, I thought Saint Louis so for a variety 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.040 of reasons, right, I thought Saint Louis was gonna be 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.679 a good spot. So but the point was they picked 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.439 I remember the last thing I expected was DC. So 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.399 Bezos made a business and so what did he do? 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:20.600 Then? 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:25.000 He buys the Washington Post. And I think he saw 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.919 the Washington Post as an investment in being able to 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:34.320 curry favor in Washington for Amazon. And it made a 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.480 ton of sense. Right, you're the owner of the Washington Post. 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:40.720 You're going to get more meetings with the lawmakers that 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:42.840 you need to have meetings with. And you know, you 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.120 could say, okay, Jeff Bezos, well we'll give him that too, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.280 But it only adds. It's only additive, right, It gives 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:56.399 you outsized potential influence and all of it, you know, 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:01.560 and so but but in order in order for that 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:03.160 to stay, the Post had to be. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:05.400 Robust. 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.160 So he did endorse a robust version of the Washington Post. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.920 I think he saw it as a trophy. He did 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.760 not see it as a business in and of itself, which. 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.800 Has always been my frustration. He saw it. 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.800 As a trophy that could help him with his other businesses. 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.160 So initially that's because he had all these government contracts 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.280 with AWS moves, the second Amazon headquarters, which is all 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.399 about those Pentagon contracts, and then of course there's his 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:42.840 hobby with space all of it. Having, you know, having 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.000 that kind of influence in Washington was going to be 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:51.159 helpful all of those businesses. Well, in comes Donald Trump 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:56.960 and the polarization of media in general and the weaponization 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:02.280 by the right to attack any journalists, any journalistic organization 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:11.920 that dared try to report accountability stories about anybody left 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:17.000 or right. But you know, everything got and Donald Trump 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:21.679 personalized everything in that first turn, and the question was 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:27.679 how was it going to impact Bezos? And look, the 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.080 conventional with the rest of official Washington was just as 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.639 alarmed about Donald Trump as the Washington Post was, So 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:37.840 in some ways, I think Bezos felt comforted that he 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.240 was still on the side. Yes, he was did lose 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:47.760 a government contract because Donald Trump essentially punished Amazon, punished 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.800 Bezos because he didn't like the coverage he was getting 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:58.880 out of the Washington Post. Passed forward to twenty twenty three. 0:22:57.560 --> 0:22:58.600 Right when. 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:06.320 Jeff Bezos decides to radically remodel the Washington Post. Yes, 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:08.320 there was a moment that the Post was having. 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:08.800 They couldn't. 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.000 They were losing some traffic, losing and it had to 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:14.119 have less to do with it, you know. They just 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:20.000 they didn't do anything right with the upside that they 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:23.400 were experiencing in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen and investing 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.520 in sort of cementing some of the growth that they have. Right, 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:29.240 you get growth, you should want to cement it. 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:29.840 They didn't. 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.199 The New York Times did right, just the Salzburger's just 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.720 but there they own the Times. For the Times to 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:42.600 be a successful business, Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.720 for the success of his other businesses. He never was 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.920 that interested in the success of the business of news 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:54.160 and information itself, because if he had been, he would 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.200 have made a lot more different decisions. You don't hire 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:02.560 somebody who's just a tabloid editor from the UK who 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:09.879 just is a clickbait, attention economy type of journalists. It's 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:13.000 a great way to make money if you're an individual. 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.640 It's not a long term sustaining business. Just go see 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:22.080 the UK news market if you need more proof of that. 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:26.639 And never mind that like will Lewis's journalistic credentials were 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:31.439 pretty much shit for his connection with the with the 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:36.720 Murdock scandals that did cost him a bit of his 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:37.760 reputation in the UK. 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:42.760 But Bezos makes this hire anyway. 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:47.719 You don't hire will Lewis because you think there is 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:52.560 more money to be made in a transformational business to 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:58.320 be created that somehow others Fred Ryan and Marty Beron 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:02.720 didn't figure out. You hire will Lewis because you want 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:07.560 to change the tenor and reputation of the Washington Post itself. 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:14.560 So again, it's twenty twenty three, Donald Trump's front runner 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:19.159