Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs — but making his Washington Post staffers face reality may be his toughest-ever career challenge.
A long time ago in a media galaxy that now seems far, far away, the Post was one of the most respected newspapers in the country, capturing 68 Pulitzers in the process.
But in recent years, especially since Donald Trump’s first presidential run, the paper’s shift from left-of-center to hard-left extremism has become obvious and overt.
The paper has never endorsed a Republican presidential candidate in its history — boosting the likes of Jimmy Carter (twice!) and Joe Biden, along with White House losers Walter Mondale, John Kerry, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.
And here and now in 2025, its editorial pages are littered with not just negative commentary on President Trump but outright vitriol.
The nastiness is clearly out of step with the national mood after Trump won the popular vote, swept every swing state, and turned 89% of counties more red than blue, while Republicans won back the Senate and maintained control of the House.
Becoming the MSNBC of print has not only hurt the paper’s credibility, but also its bottom line.
In 2024, the paper lost $100 million and about 250,000 subscribers in the midst of the most insane, unpredictable presidential election year of our lifetimes.
Bezos has apparently seen enough: Last week he announced that his opinion pages will mirror American values like “free markets and personal liberties” — hardly a controversial position at all.
But leftists — including many WaPo staffers — howled.
Editorial page editor David Shipley abruptly resigned, following a raft of similar temper-tantrum departures last year after the paper declined to endorse installed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president.
Bezos spent much of last weekend defending his decision on X, explaining to hysterical critics, “There is nothing fascist about personal liberties and free markets,” calling such ideas “foundational enduring principles that have served this country well for a long time” that “are often under assault.”
This week, new WaPo publisher Will Lewis reportedly put out feelers to right-leaning reporters, meeting with Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon.
Bezos’s new approach should be the rule, not the exception, in our media.
True diversity isn’t about skin color, ethnicity or sexual orientation, but about welcoming differences of thought, of ideas, of debate.
A newsroom filled with diverse opinions certainly shouldn’t be something that’s newsworthy — or lead to major players flouncing off in disgust.
Yet here we are.
So the question now is: Can Bezos succeed in changing the partisan culture of a newspaper located in a city where Trump received just 6.5% of the vote in 2024?
For an answer, let’s look at recent precedent.
In 2024, MSNBC hired former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, its first pro-Trump commentator in years, as a contributor. It sparked an on-air mutiny as Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd and many others demanded her ouster. After roughly 48 hours, that’s exactly what happened.
In 2022, CNN tried to boost its appeal to independent and right-leaning viewers. Its new owners brought in Chris Licht, vowing to invite more Republicans on-air and to return to the old CNN standards of objective journalism.
But a Trump town hall in 2023 so appalled anchor Anderson Cooper that he called the event “disturbing” and assured viewers it would be fine if they “never watched the network again.” Licht was fired not long after.
For Bezos, who announced the WaPo’s pivot on Feb. 26, the first big litmus test came on Tuesday night, during Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.
A group of the Washington Post’s top columnists provided running commentary of the event.
The paper’s headline: “‘We’re doomed’: 9 columnists on Trump’s address to Congress.”
Enough said.
Yet polls afterward showed a major disconnect between these elites-with-bylines and the general public: A CBS poll found 76% of respondents saying they approved of Trump’s address; CNN’s poll clocked in at 69% approval.
Whoops.
Until Bezos makes some major changes to its staff, and he adds some who actually support Trump’s agenda in the name of balance, The Washington Post will never change.
In the meantime, he should stay the course.
Because whatever the WaPo has been doing to this point clearly ain’t working.
Joe Concha is a Fox News contributor and author of the upcoming book “The Greatest Comeback Ever: Inside Trump’s Big Beautiful Campaign.”
