The Post Adopts a New Mission Statement

Yesterday we learned that hundreds of Washington Post staffers are begging Jeff Bezos to step in and possibly save them from looming decline after recent layoffs and several reporters leaving for other outlets.

No word on whether Bezos will respond to that request for a meeting signed by 400 employees. But we do know that the paper is trying to convince employees they are not circling the drain but about to expand dramatically. The paper’s official slogan remains “Democracy Dies in Darkness” but behind the scenes they are trying out something less goth: Riveting Storytelling for All of America.

This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”

The statement is meant to be an internal rallying point for employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Executives are not planning to replace its more strident public slogan. Suzi Watford, The Post’s chief strategy officer, has been previewing it to some employees this week…

Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has made comments in line with the new mission statement in conversations with Post journalists in recent years, according to two people familiar with those discussions. Mr. Bezos has expressed hopes that The Post would be read by more blue-collar Americans who live outside coastal cities, mentioning people like firefighters in Cleveland. He has also said that he is interested in expanding The Post’s audience among conservatives, the people said.

Will this new approach work? I’m not convinced. I started reading the Post in the early 90s when I lived in the Washington, DC area. It was always the hometown paper for elected Democrats in Washington. It was always biased and seeming proud of that. So announcing the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” at the start of the Trump administration in 2017 really fit. It was a progressive talking point turned corporate mission statement. It was also absurdly self-important and over-dramatic. We all knew who the darkness represented and the Post was going to act as a light-bringer or some such nonsense. Slate mocked it at the time suggesting it would make a pretty good title for a metal album along with Seasons in the Abyss by Slayer and Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying by Megadeth.

Mostly the slogan marked the paper as the rallying point for angry liberals eager to join the resistance. But here we are 8 years later and the wind has really gone out of the sails of that kind of earnest progressivism. Joe Biden’s term was a failure in too many ways and Trump’s 2024 win was too convincing for Resistance 2.0 to look like anything but doubling down on stupid.

There’s also the financial problem which I mentioned yesterday. The Post lost $100 million last year. The equally liberal LA Times has been losing $30-$40 million per year. MSNBC and CNN are struggling with low ratings since the election. At some point, it occurs to the left-leaning billionaires that not losing money hand over fist might be better than the status quo. But the only way to do that is to reach beyond the dejected left-wingers who currently make up the paper’s subscriber base. And the only way to do that is to make the paper less of a progressive cesspit.

Reaching all of America will require The Post to “understand and represent interests across the country,” it says, and “provide a forum for viewpoints, expert perspectives and conversation.”

Ms. Watford, who joined The Post in April, also laid out big-picture goals for the company. Among them: reach 200 million paying users, which the slide deck described as a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal,” or “B.H.A.G.”

The writing is on the wall. Bezos wants to see the paper become financially successful by appealing to a much wider audience. My guess is most of the current newsroom staff and most of their current subscribers aren’t going to like that. When Bezos told the editorial board not to endorse Kamala Harris they lost 200,000 subscribers. Those people probably will not return if the Post keeps moving toward the center. Fair and balanced is something the Post has never been and never wanted to be. I’m not sure they can really change who they are at this late date, no matter what secret slogan they adopt.