The Washington Post, Non-profits, learning to love Jeff Bezos('s money)

Pictured: Jeffrey Preston Bezos, website operator.

In which I boldly make the case against non-profits and for (some) megalomaniacal billionaires

Legacy media is struggling. Just about every journalist whose paycheck doesn’t originate from 242 W 41st Street is acutely aware that the times are tough. To blame are the usual suspects, the platforms that devoured ad revenue, and the readers turned away from mainstream news in favor of algorithms that serve their pre-existing worldview. Add to that the unusual suspects, a newly restored President Trump who unleash a storm of legal and regulatory challenges toward “the enemy of the people,” and radicalized billionaires stomping Godzilla-like through the antique shop of the traditional press. 

Jeff Bezos, my ‘favorite’ of this particular breed, came to news as a custodian. Buying the Washington Post off of the Graham family and promising to restore it to glory through a combination of money and Silicon Valley innovation. That wholesale transformation never materialized and in the waning days of the 2024 election Bezos dealt his beleaguered asset an unneeded blow. Bezos isn’t the only billionaire to kill a Presidential endorsement (we can talk about the value of editorial board endorsements another time, i’m adding it to my list) but for a paper that built its subscriber base on the #Resistance-inflected motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness” it wasn’t a great move. The paper was already set to lose a reported $77 million this year before Bezos act of non-resistance caused it to rapidly bleed 250,000 subscribers (roughly 10% of its total audience)

One potential solution for the Washington Post, floated by people much smarter than I, would be to sell it to a charitable trust that could serve as custodian and insulate the paper from economic difficulties and the business entanglements of a wealthy owner. It’s a formula that’s been used to preserve The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Tampa Bay Times, and perhaps most famously The Guardian which is owned in perpetuity by The Scott Trust. 

The appeal of this shift is obvious: greater editorial independence, reduced commercial pressure, and, ideally, more long-term stability in an era where journalism’s future seems increasingly precarious. The Scott Trust, for instance, has allowed The Guardian to focus on quality, investigative journalism without the constant threat of investor demands for short-term profits. But while these moves offer potential benefits, they also amount to an admission—that quality journalism has become increasingly incompatible with the profit-driven world of modern media.

The concept of trusts is rooted in the idea that the pursuit of public good, not just financial gain, should guide the operation of major news outlets. Without the burden of quarterly earnings reports or shareholder expectations, these outlets have more freedom to make editorial decisions based on what serves the public interest, rather than what's most profitable. 

Major news outlets that once thrived under traditional advertising and subscription models are now struggling to navigate a media landscape dominated by tech platforms, partisan commentators, and algorithms. The shift towards nonprofit or trust-based ownership may signal the recognition that traditional journalism's business model is broken beyond repair. It uggests that perhaps there is no longer room in the market for a truly independent, large-scale, commercially successful news organization that prioritizes news gathering and expertise over sensationalism. But it also trades one set of bad incentives, the whims of a wealthy owner or a fickle and failing marketplace, for another, the largesse of donors whose commitment to news can waiver. And removes the needed pressure to innovate

While nonprofit models can, should, and do play an essential role in sustaining journalism, particularly investigative reporting and niche coverage that may not generate immediate profits, we we also have to consider the broader implications. The media ecosystem thrives on diversity—of voices, of ownership models, and of revenue streams. Nonprofit journalism can fill some gaps, but it shouldn’t be the cure-all, especially for one of the few remaining national papers of long-standing reputation. 

Major news outlets should not abdicate the fight for commercial viability for the same reason they shouldn’t settle for taking a backseat to partisan hacks and TikTok trends.  Finding the way back to profitability will necessarily have to go hand-in-hand with finding a way back to relevance with an audience over which The News^TM has lost most of its influence. Rather than retreat into a donor backed sinecure,

News organizations need to continue exploring sustainable business models. I know that’s a tough pill to swallow, especially if you came-up through the digital media of the late aughts and 2010s. (Doesn’t it seem like we’ve been “exploring new models” forever.) But every year legacy media is becoming less relevant, and the billionaires are losing interest. If we want to find new paths to profitability, and preserve a form of traditional journalism that can actually influence and inform new audiences, this may be the last chance to use Jeff Bezos’ money to do it. 

Some good links (a bit Brit heavy this week)

So…we’re all on BlueSky now? Twitter has always been a small social media network that punched above it’s weight culturally. Charlotte Henry convincingly makes the case that Twitter mattered because the media said it did, and so BlueSky will matter too.

Whenever I tire of New York media gossip, there’s always London media gossip. This (slightly belated) one from Jim Waterson’s LondonCentric has got everything: Russian aristos, secret Saudi money, media barons. I enjoyed it, maybe you will too.

Tina Brown, in her newish newsletter Fresh Hell picks apart Trump’s cabinet picks with characteristic élan. This is off topic for me, but I think I might link to Tina in every issue in the hopes that she’ll notice and invite me to lunch and then become my friend. Please click.

Question of the week

I saw this tweet (Hi Paris) recently and realized that I’ve seen someone complain about this about once a month for the last…ten years maybe? The fact that it keeps coming up suggests to me that some people definitely are doing this. Do you?

Other matters

• No one sent me any good gossip and the one thing I heard about this week I cannot print. If you want me to be better, then you have to be better.

• I am dead serious about the Media Steph thing. The newsletters will continue until someone tells me who ran this account.