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The Washington Post, which adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, is now pushing a new mission statement to its employees as Trump prepares to take office for a second time, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
Concocted as an “internal rallying point” for staff and not currently meant to replace the paper’s public slogan, the new statement reads: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
Needless to say, once the Times reported on the new corporate strategy for the Post, whose newsroom has been embroiled in turmoil for months, the mission statement was immediately mocked online by critics and journalists.
“Quick don’t look is this the statement for Disney Plus, Max, or The Washington Post,” The Bulwark’s Tim Miller tweeted. Forbes tech and innovation executive editor John Paczkowski, meanwhile, connected the motto with that of Amazon, whose founder Jeff Bezos also owns the Post. “Wapo: ‘Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History,’” he posted.
“Regular storytelling isn’t gonna cut it folks. Gotta rivet people in Texas and Minnesota,” The Hollywood Reporter’s media reporter Alex Weprin noted.
The Times also reported that a slide deck presented to executives detailing the genesis of the mission statement described how artificial intelligence would help bring more readers and subscribers to the paper.
“It describes The Post as ‘an A.I.-fueled platform for news’ that delivers ‘vital news, ideas and insights for all Americans where, how and when they want it,’” the Times notes. “It also lays out three pillars of The Post’s overall plan: ‘great journalism,’ ‘happy customers’ and ‘make money.’”
Semafor politics reporter Dave Weigel, meanwhile, reacted to the corporate language in the deck by stating the “McKinsey is strong with this one.” National Journal Hotline editor Kirk Bado similarly snarked: “Another $650,000 to McKinsey for that one.”
Others were far harsher towards the Post’s mission statement, describing it as “pathetic” and wondering if Bezos was “trolling” them, all while pointing out that this is a newspaper and “not a YA fiction publisher.” At the same time, observers sarcastically compared it to the “we bring the boom” catchphrase by the Costco Guys.
Reporters also poked fun at the paper’s pie-in-the-sky projections of getting the majority of Americans to become paying readers of the Post. “Has anyone thought of trying to get everyone to read the newspaper before,” Slate culture writer Sam Adams wrote.
According to the Times, Bezos has been looking to shift the paper’s focus for years now to attract more right-leaning readers from the heartland.
“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,” the Times noted. “He has also said that he is interested in expanding The Post’s audience among conservatives, the people said.”
Suzi Watford, the paper’s chief strategy officer, was behind the slide deck, which said that the paper’s “storytelling” could “bring a relentless investigative spirit, backed by credible sources, to deliver impactful stories in formats the world wants.” Furthermore, she stated that the long-term goal of the company should be to reach 200 million paying readers, which the deck described as a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal,” or “B.H.A.G.”
Just for comparison’s sake, most of the top-performing news sites in America — including the Post — generated fewer than 100 million regular monthly viewers last year, many of which were non-paying. Furthermore, the New York Times — the most-read paper in the country — has about 11 million paying subscribers. The Post currently has less than 3 million subscribers.
Making matters more challenging for the paper is the number of crises the Post has suffered through over the past few months. Even before Bezos spiked the editorial board’s presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris, prompting at least 250,000 readers to cancel their subscriptions and an exodus of top talent and editors, the newsroom was racked with drama over publisher Will Lewis’ hostility to the staff and journalists covering his past controversies.
Discontent with Lewis’s and Bezos’s leadership has only grown in recent months, especially as Bezos has cozied up to Trump ahead of next week’s inauguration. Since Trump’s November win, Amazon has donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and licensed a documentary on Melania Trump for $40 million. The mega-billionaire is scheduled to sit alongside Trump’s Cabinet picks when the president-elect is sworn into office.
Earlier this week, over 400 Washington Post reporters and editors sent a letter to Bezos urging him to meet with the newsroom in order to restore “trust that has been lost” that has led “readers to question the integrity of this institution.”
This post was originally published on here
