How Jeff Bezos changed the Washington Post

Summary

Podcast Summary: Apple News Today – "How Jeff Bezos Changed the Washington Post"

Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Shumita Basu
Notable guest: Max Tani (Semafor Media Editor)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the dramatic changes and turmoil at The Washington Post amidst major cuts and a rapidly shifting media landscape. Media analyst Max Tani explains how Jeff Bezos’ ownership has steered the paper through both expansion and deep retrenchment, illuminating broader struggles within legacy media. The episode also briefly covers U.S. allies' shifting relations with China and a preview of the 2026 Super Bowl.

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Section 1: The Washington Post in Turmoil

The Post’s Storied Past Meets an Uncertain Future

• The Washington Post is described as an iconic paper with “a historic reputation for revealing how government works from within, informing a generation of readers and infuriating the world’s most powerful people by holding them to account.” (Shumita, [01:03])
• Referencing the Nixon years, the show recalls, “no reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be in the White House. Is that clear?” ([01:18])—demonstrating the paper’s legacy of tough journalism.

Major Cuts Under Bezos’ Leadership

• Recent changes involve “closing its sports section in its current form,” major reductions to foreign bureaus, elimination of the book section, and large layoffs, including video and tech staff. (Max Tani, [01:50])
  • “They’ve decided to cut a large number of video staffers. And that’s just on the editorial side...You’ll hear less about those because they’re not as visible.” ([01:50])
• The scale of cuts is striking: “Some of the most dramatic cuts to a news organization in recent memory.” (Tani, [01:34])

Why the Cuts? Financial Hemorrhaging and a Need to ‘Reinvent’

• Tani notes, “The paper had been hemorrhaging cash, potentially as much as $100 million a year.” (Shumita, [02:26])
• Executive editor Matt Murray cites being “too rooted in a different era.” (via Shumita, [02:26])

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Section 2: How Jeff Bezos Changed the Post

Bezos’ Early Promise and Success

• When Bezos bought the paper in 2013, he “promised to help the paper expand and grow and become this digital media behemoth. And it did. For a while.” (Tani, [02:51])
  • The Trump presidency temporarily boosted the Post’s digital fortunes due to increased news interest.

Editorial Shifts and Missed Opportunities

• Post-Trump, the Post “didn’t diversify its business effectively enough in the way that competitors such as the New York Times did.” (Tani, [03:24])
  • The newsroom remained “overly reliant on politics and Trump.”
• In 2024, Bezos “broke with tradition and prevented the paper’s editors from endorsing a candidate,” angering core readers. He also overhauled the opinion desk to exclude views “that opposed, quote, personal liberties and free markets.” (Shumita, [03:37])
  • These moves reportedly cost more than 375,000 subscribers (~15% of paid circulation).

Seeking a New Audience

• Tani: “It definitely decided to find a different audience, which is really, really hard to do in 2026, especially when online audiences for legacy publications already most likely have a particular view of what that publication is and what it stands for.” ([04:16])

The Bezos Contradiction: Savior or Ruthless Businessman?

• Defense: “He’s invested hundreds of millions of his own dollars into this paper, this money losing entity, and he wants to save the Post by making it financially viable for the future. And at this point, that includes some really, really difficult cuts.” (Tani, [04:38])
• Criticism: “For as much as $100 million sounds to us he spends a lot more than that every year on various other projects. When he bought this paper, he promised to be a good steward of it, and this week he’s decided to ... cut back on it quite significantly.” (Tani, [05:08])
  • The Atlantic: “His custom super yacht cost $500 million, double what he paid for the Post.” (Shumita, [04:54])

Notable Quotes:

• “Many of his detractors point that this is one of the richest individuals in the world... he spends a lot more than that every year on various other projects.” – Max Tani ([05:08])
• “The Post is associated with some of the most consequential journalism in the history of this country.” – Max Tani ([01:34])

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Section 3: U.S. Allies Lean Toward China

Canada and UK Reset Ties with China

• Canadian PM Mark Carney and UK’s Keir Starmer made high-profile visits to Beijing—a shift after years of chilly relations. (Shumita, [06:08])
  • Kim MacRail: “It wasn’t so long ago that relations between Ottawa and Beijing were pretty tense... now talking about a new strategic partnership.” ([06:31])

Drivers of the Shift

• Under previous U.S. administrations, allies followed America’s hard line; Trump’s unpredictability now prompts them to diversify. (Shumita, [06:45])
  • “The unpredictability of the United States... has made China seem more necessary.” (Shumita, [06:45])

Trump’s Response and Global Implications

• President Trump threatened tariffs and urged allies not to “look at China as the answer.”
  • “It’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China.” ([07:11])
• US trade with China is down, while allies balance new deals with both China and other partners (like India).
• Allies are wary about being excluded if Trump and Xi make a sweeping deal: “Creates a much more uncertain situation for American allies than they had had in the past.” (Kim MacRail, [08:09])

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Section 4: Super Bowl Preview – A Rematch Years in the Making

Reflecting on One of the Most Notorious Super Bowl Moments

• “That game, a really historic back and forth game which ends on the Seahawks on the one yard line with the chance to win the super bowl and throwing an interception at the goal line...” (Shakar Siman, [09:42])
  • “I can’t believe the call. You’ve got Marshawn Lynch in the backfield... I can’t believe the call.” (Shakar Siman, [09:42])

Lingering Scars for Seattle Fans

• Seattle superfan Ken Jennings: “There were just tears, just weeping children, disconsolate children. And I remember thinking, like, should sports exist? Like, making this room of children, just one Malcolm Butler interception is all it takes to spread this much unhappiness.” ([11:11])

Who Will Win This Year’s Rematch?

• Players to watch: Seahawks’ Jackson Smith-Njigba (“mega, hyper superstar”) and Patriots’ Drake May (“breakout season”). (Shakar Siman, [11:58])
• Shakar Siman’s prediction: “I think the Seahawks are going to win the Super Bowl... Seahawks over Patriots 31–17.” ([12:57])

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Section 5: Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A lot of my foundational thoughts about sports come from that game...” – Ken Jennings, on the 2015 Super Bowl ([11:11])
• “He’s invested hundreds of millions of his own dollars into this paper... he wants to save the Post by making it financially viable for the future.” – Max Tani ([04:38])
• “They probably would have won the super bowl if they just given the ball to Marshawn Lynch. Which to be fair is also a belief that most of us have held for the last decade.” – Shakar Siman ([10:25])

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• Washington Post’s legacy: [01:03]
• Major newsroom cuts: [01:50]
• Bezos’ strategy and impact: [02:51]
• Subscription losses after 2024 endorsement change: [03:37]
• Allies rethink China ties: [06:08]
• Trump warns against closer China ties: [07:11]
• Super Bowl preview and 2015 recap: [09:03]
• Ken Jennings on sports heartbreak: [11:11]
• Game predictions and key players: [11:58], [12:57]

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Tone & Style:
The episode balances a journalistic, analytical tone with empathy and wit, particularly in sports coverage.

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This summary covers the episode’s central themes and major stories, condensing all key arguments, insights, and personalities—for an engaging understanding without needing to listen to the full episode.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there. It's Shemita here. I just wanted to let you know that I am stepping away from the mic for a little while because I'm about to have a baby for the second time. So this show is gonna keep coming your way with great guest hosts in my absence, and I'll be listening at home just like you. Thank you to all of my great colleagues here for everything. On with the show. Good morning. The Washington Post is in turmoil as major cuts look set to transform the public. Semafor's media editor delves into how it happened.

[B]

The modern media business is really, really hard, but a lot of it was that the Post decided and owner Jeff Bezos decided that it wanted its audience to be different than what it is now.

[A]

Why traditional US Allies are leaning away from Trump and toward China, and what to watch for at the super bowl on the field and on the halftime stage. It's Friday, February 6th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News Today. It is a newspaper with a historic reputation for revealing how government works from within, informing a generation of readers and infuriating the world's most powerful people by holding them to account.

[C]

I want to clearly understood that from now on, no reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be in the White House. Is that clear?

[A]

But 50 years after Richard Nixon went to war with the Post and lost, we learned that the paper is facing a very uncertain future.

[B]

The Post is associated with some of the most consequential journalism in the history of this country. And these cuts are some of the most dramatic cuts to a news organization in recent memory.

[A]

Max Tawny is the media editor at Semaphore, and he told us what's been going on.

[B]

The paper has decided to close its sports section in its current form. They've decided to dramatically reduce the scope of that. They've dramatically reduced the scope of their foreign bureaus around the world. They're one of the only US News organizations that has extensive reporting resources deployed across every continent. They decided to eliminate their book section. They decided to cut a large number of video staffers. And that's just on the editorial side. They also got rid of a number of people on the product and technology side as well. You'll hear less about those because they're not as visible.

[A]

Taney says the paper had been hemorrhaging cash, potentially as much as $100 million a year. And in their note to staff, executive editor Matt Murray said the company was quote, too ro in a different era and would need to reinvent their business model. Much of the coverage since the announcement has been focused on its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the paper in 2013 as it was struggling financially.

[B]

Bezos came in and promised to help the paper expand and grow and become this digital media behemoth. And it did. For a while. It was really helped by Trump's election and the interest in that story and the Post's fantastic coverage of politics and Washington, the federal government.

[A]

And in those early years, Bezos resisted interfering editorially, leaving the journalists to do their work. But with Trump's departure in 2020, the post, like everyone else, needed to find new ways to engage audiences.

[B]

It didn't diversify its business effectively enough in the way that competitors such as the New York Times did. The Post was really reliant, overly reliant on politics and Trump. And so once they started to see that drop off, it was already a.

[A]

Little bit late in the 2024 race. Bezos decision to break with tradition and prevent the paper's editors from endorsing a candidate angered many of its traditional readers, as did his overhaul of the opinion desk that would exclude views that opposed, quote, personal liberties and free markets. Taken together, those moves cost the post more than 375,000 subscribers, according to NPR. That's roughly 15% of its total paid circulation at the time. As critics accused Bezos of bowing to the Trump administration, Tani told us that Bezos wanted to appeal to swing voters and people more sympathetic to Trump's agenda.

[B]

I think that it definitely decided to find a different audience, which is really, really hard to do in 2026, especially when online audiences, particularly for legacy publications, already most likely have a particular view of what that publication is and what it stands for.

[A]

Defenders of Bezos might point to the fact that he essentially saved a dying paper at a really difficult moment.

[B]

He's invested hundreds of millions of his own dollars into this paper, this money losing entity, and he wants to save the Post by making it financially viable for the future. And at this point, that includes some really, really difficult cuts. That's what his defenders would say.

[A]

On the flip side, some would say his immense wealth means he can afford to keep an unprofitable paper afloat. As the Atlantic points out, his custom super yacht cost $500 million, double what he paid for the Post.

[B]

Many of his detractors point that this is one of the richest individuals in the world and for as much as $100 million. Sounds to us he spends a lot more than that every year on various other projects. When he bought this paper. He promised to be a good steward of it, and this week he's decided to make some decisions to cut back on it quite significantly.

[A]

The Post's executive editor said Bezos remained committed to the publication. Long standing allies of the US appear to be looking elsewhere for partnerships recently.

[D]

China is a vital player on the global stage, and it's vital that we build a more sophisticated relationship.

[B]

Immediately after the election, Canada's new government began to recalibrate our relationship with China strategically, pragmatically and decisively.

[A]

In January, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Beijing and he was followed shortly after by the UK's PM Keir Starmer, making it the first time in eight years a British leader has stepped foot in China. Carney was there to announce a deal on electric vehicles, but as Kim McCrail from the Wall Street Journal told us, he was also there to deliver a message of a new relationship between the two countries.

[E]

It wasn't so long ago that relations between Ottawa and Beijing were pretty tense, and to go to Beijing and talk about a new strategic partnership is a sign certainly of some rethinking around what that relationship should look like.

[A]

Under previous Trump and Biden administrations, many allies operated in an effective deep freeze with China. But as one analyst put it to McRail, the unpredictability of the United States this past year has made China seem more necessary. In response to these leaders recent visits, President Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canadian goods, and when he was Asked about the UK's visit, he urged both countries to pivot.

[C]

Well, it's very dangerous for them to do that, and it's even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China. Canada is not doing well. They're doing very poorly, and you can't look at China as the answer.

[A]

MacRail told us that Trump's posture has also pushed some traditional allies to get closer to places like South South America and India. As leaders tell their citizens to prepare for a new world order, we're seeing.

[E]

Major deals being done that probably are moving forward, at least faster than they would have without the Trump administration being there.

[A]

US trade with China, meanwhile, has gone in the opposite direction, and Chinese share of US imports has plummeted to levels not seen since 2010. Trump spoke to President Xi Jinping this week and after described their relationship as extremely good. They're scheduled to meet again in April, and some allies worry that they could be left out in the cold if she and Trump strike a deal during that upcoming summit.

[E]

We'll be watching again to see what gets agreed to and what kind of ripple effects and impacts that will have on them, which is a very different situation for American allies from previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, when there was much more of an effort to bring allies on board and say, here are the things we want to do related to China. Where are the ways we can work together on those things? So it creates a much more uncertain situation for American allies than they had had in the past.

[A]

At the end of the month, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to make his first trip to China, where he's also expected to lay the groundwork for resetting relations. Sunday is the super bowl, and this year's game features a rematch of what many consider one of the best Super.

[C]

Bowls Clock at five pass is intercepted at the goal line by Malcolm Butler. Unreal. Malcolm Butler, who almost made the phenomenal play that wound up in Percy's arms or flags on the field.

[D]

It's hard to talk about this game without also talking about the fact that 11 years ago these two teams met in the Super Bowl.

[A]

My colleague, Apple News sports editor Shakar Siman is on the ground in San Francisco and he joined us to talk about the game and the long shadow cast by that 2015 matchup.

[D]

So that game, a really historic back and forth game which ends on the Seahawks on the one yard line with the chance to win the super bowl and throwing an interception at the goal line, the historic Malcolm Butler Patriots interception. Instead of handing the ball off to Marshawn lynch, their superstar elite probable future hall of Fame running back. I cannot believe the call. You've got Marshawn lynch in the backfield. You've got a guy that's been borderline unstoppable in this part of the field. I can't believe the call. You know, talking to players this week on both teams. We were at super bowl opening night talking to the Patriots and the Seahawks and I asked them 11 years later with hindsight, should they have just handed off to Marshawn? And what we found was pretty fun. All of the Seahawks players, I think, wanting to be on their best behavior, said, you know, no comment. I don't really know. It was a long time ago and every Patriots player was, oh, they absolutely should have. They probably would have won the super bowl if they just given the ball to Marshawn lynch. Which to be fair is also a belief that most of us have held for the last decade.

[A]

You know, that game in 2015, it looms large in the minds of fans. And I know that you Spoke to one Seattle fan in particular who. It really shaped him. You want to tell us about it?

[D]

So earlier this week, we spoke to Ken Jennings, the host of Jeopardy. Die Hard, lifelong Seattle super fan, who said to me that it was the first time that he really contemplated that maybe sports are a bad idea, maybe football is a terrible thing because of the pain he felt in that moment.

[F]

A lot of my foundational thoughts about sports come from that game because I was over at a friend's house, a lot of kids, a lot of die hard Seahawks fans who were kids, and there were just tears, There were just weeping children, disconsolate children. And I remember thinking, like, should sports exist? Like, making this room of children, just one Malcolm Butler interception is all it takes to spread this much unhappiness.

[A]

It's a little too crushing, huh?

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Mentioning that his son, like that was one of the first football games he ever saw. And. Oh, no, no. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lo. This is the other side of that coin.

[A]

Well, so now what should we anticipate watching these two teams face off again this weekend?

[D]

These are two teams that really just have exceptional defenses and kind of different kinds of weapons offensively. When you look at the Seahawks, they have a player this year, Jackson Smith and Jigba, wide receiver, who has exploded onto the scene. He's always, in his short NFL career thus far, been a pretty solid player, but this year really elevated himself to just like mega, hyper superstar, one of the best players in the NFL, sort of like level of play. It's wild. He's not that fast, he's not that big, he's not that strong, and he's completely unstoppable. The Patriots, Drake May, who, when he came into the league was seen as potentially a future franchise quarterback, someone who could take over the mantle for the Patriots from Tom Brady after he'd long left but struggled early on in his NFL career. And this year has, similar to Jackson, Smith and Jigba, a breakout season. And it does feel like this is one of the most evenly matched Super Bowls I can remember in quite a while.

[A]

Well, shocker, I've got to put you on the spot because I love doing it. What's the prediction that you want to put your stake in the ground and say, this is it. I think this is going to happen.

[D]

I've been prepared. I've. I've fumbled enough football term of these, of these predictions in the past, but I am going to go on a limb and say I think the Seahawks are going to win the Super Bowl. I think they will exercise the demons from 11 years ago. I've got Seahawks over Patriots 31 17.

[A]

Wow. Even an exact score. I love it. Love to see it. Chakrasaman, thanks so much for your time.

[D]

Thanks so much for having me.

[A]

For the latest news and live updates from the game, make sure to follow along in the Apple News app. And if you're listening in the app right now, stick around to hear this week's episode of Apple News In Conversation. It's about the super bowl halftime performer this year, Bad Bunny, who's coming off a huge Grammy win for Album of the Year. I spoke with LA Times editor Susie Exposito, who has met and interviewed Bad Bunny several times. We talked about his childhood in Puerto Rico, his evolution as an artist and his global appeal.

[E]

Bad Bunny's story is a very Puerto Rican story, but it's also a story of the American dream. You know, he went from working at a grocery store to becoming like the biggest singer emcee superstar in the world.

[A]

If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News In Conversation to hear more or come back to the Apple News Today feed tomorrow. All new episodes of In Conversation will be available there on Saturdays, too. Enjoy your weekend. I am heading off on parental leave, but the show will be back with the news on Monday.

[D]

Sat.