The Washington Post’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos will meet with the paper‘s masthead and a number of its reporters on Thursday, a Post spokesperson said, a rare in-person gathering with staff that comes after last month’s mass layoffs.
The New York Times first reported the meeting. The spokesperson did not answer questions about specific timing or which journalists would attend the gathering at Bezos’ mansion in Washington D.C.,’s affluent Kalorama neighborhood.
Bezos has said little publicly since the Post laid off a third of the company last month, including more than 300 journalists, and pulled back from several reporting sections. His first public comment came on Feb. 7 when he appointed Jeff D’Onofrio as interim CEO following Will Lewis’ departure, saying that “the Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity.”
In the days leading up to the layoffs, multiple reporting desks — the White House team, the foreign team and the metro desk — pleaded in memos to Bezos to spare their own or their colleagues’ jobs. Many in the newsroom also expressed concerns to him publicly on social media. The pleas went ignored.
Bezos has received widespread criticism from Washington Post alums and media watchers over laying off hundreds of journalists, including its stellar international team just ahead a new war with Iran.
Former Post executive editor Marty Baron said there was “no sign” of the “steadfast support and confidence” Bezos gave him during his tenure as the paper’s leader, while Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said Bezos’ ownership over the past year has seen him “curtail or demean” the paper’s “journalistic and democratic possibilities.”
Still, the paper’s current executive editor, Matt Murray, said during a conference last month that Bezos supported the Post’s mission.
“He’s a believer in fair news,” Murray said at Semafor’s “Restoring Trust in Media” summit. “He’s a believer in bringing information out to people. He’s not as interested in sort of serving just the lead audiences, but he wants average people to see news, and what he wants is for us to be relevant and lively in people’s lives.”
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