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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. The big news from the Washington Post yesterday was about the Washington Post. The owner, Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon, in case you've been away for a few decades, officially declared that the opinion pages in the Post will now publish "every day" in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. I'll read that again. In support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. He wrote viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

He went on to write part of his rationale for this change, "There was a time when newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today the Internet does that job." From Jeff Bezos. Now, obviously, this has sparked a firestorm of reaction in the worlds of journalism, economics, and politics. Of course, it comes after the Post infamously canceled the endorsement of Kamala Harris for president that their editorial board had been planning to make.

Now, after arguing that it should not choose sides on presidential candidates in order to be seen as independent, the paper is declaring forcefully that it will choose sides every day, in Bezos's words, on a particular political philosophy. We'll talk about this news in the context of the Washington Post and what's right or wrong for the Post and for opinion pages generally today. We'll also discuss it in historical context and make it the latest segment in our history series, A 100 Years of 100 Things. It becomes thing number 72. 100 years and more of newspaper opinion writing.

Our guest for this is Paul Farhi, these days a freelance writer, but as the Washington Post's website reminds us, he was a staff writer there from 1988 till 2023. From 2010 until 2023, he covered media. One piece of recent work was an article for the journalism issue site Nieman Reports called The Long Slow Death of the Newspaper Editorial. Paul, thanks for coming on for this explosive announcement. Welcome back to WNYC.

Paul Farhi: Thank you, Brian. Glad to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, I'm going to open up the phones on this right away before you start flooding in, which I know you will, make sure everybody has the phone number, which is 212-433-WNYC. What do you think about this new direction for the Washington Post opinion pages or what questions do you have about it? Is Bezos right in your opinion, listeners, about any of this that you can get your wide spectrum of opinions on the Internet now?

A newspaper, which is mostly part of the Internet itself these days, doesn't need to provide that. Ask yourself in all honesty if Bezos was staking out a political agenda that you might agree with more than the libertarian one he's proclaiming, if you're not in love with that, would you see him more as a hero and less as a villain? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Further, do you think the whole idea of newspaper editorials or op-ed columnists degrades trust in journalism these days because average readers can't be expected to separate fair and accurate news coverage from the opinion that papers or their columnists declare they have on any of those things? 212-433-WNYC.

In the context of this as a history segment, can anyone name an instance from recently or any time in the past when reading a newspaper opinion, or editorial page influenced your own opinion on an issue or on which candidate to vote for in an election? Since we do oral histories that go as far back as you can take them in these history segments, how about anything you heard along these lines from your parents or your grandparents, or anyone else?

There are a number of ways you might want to participate in this at 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, call or text with Paul Farhi, former 25-year Washington Post staffer, including 13 years covering the media. Paul, usually we start our 100-year history segments back in time by a century or more. Today I think we should start on the news. What does Bezos mean when he says the opinion section will support and defend personal liberties and free markets? Is that pro-abortion rights? Is it against tariffs? What basic political ground is he staking out in terms of today's actual issues?

Paul Farhi: The answer to that, Brian, is we don't really know. That was what was so baffling about this announcement. A radical announcement. A radical change in the opinion section of the Washington Post is we don't really know exactly what he's got in mind. What are personal liberties? What are free markets? You can fill in that blank any way you'd but the fact is it's not really well spelled out. What's shocking to the staff, I think, and to readers perhaps, is how radical a change this is for the entire existence of the Washington Post, the Post has had a wide variety, as Bezos has noted, a wide variety of opinions and perspectives.

It had its institutional voice, voice of the establishment, if you will. There were a variety of things in there. At a time when there is very radical transformative change in the federal government, this is where he's laying his bets. It's mystifying and very puzzling, but that's the shockwave that you're sensing right now.

Brian Lehrer: I think we should also make clear for our listeners what part of the Washington Post we're talking about because I think this can be confusing for people who don't work in our business.

Paul Farhi: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: If we're saying the opinion section, if that's what Bezos is saying, does that just mean the Post's own editorials or also all their columnists? Because they have had, you were just indicating, they have had a variety of more liberal or progressive or conservative columnists. Does it mean anyone who might have a one-shot guest op-ed? What's the actual category and scope here for this announcement?

Paul Farhi: Here's where the mystification takes over. The answer to that is I don't really know because he hasn't really spelled it out. The editorial section of the Post was many things. There were the Post's own voice institutionally in opinions. There were letters to the editor. There were op-eds, there were columnists employed by the Post. Is all that going away? I don't know. I don't think it's all going away, but what form it will take is still a work in progress.

In answer to your question is, it's hard to say exactly what it's going to look. Your distinction you're making is very important. There have always been two sides to the Post, co-equal branches of the Post, if you will. One is the news side, the basic daily reporting that you see from the Post, and then there is the opinion side. There was almost literally a wall between those two branches. They didn't talk to each other, one did not influence the other, and they were separate but equal.

Brian Lehrer: Paul, I would jump in and say maybe there are really three categories that we should establish. There's the actual news reporting. There's the editorial page, which is the Post's official opinions, and there's the opinion page with a variety of columnists who could have a variety of opinions as well as the guest op-ed contributors. No?

Paul Farhi: That's right. Although the latter, all of the latter, was grouped under the editorial opinion side of the building, and it was segregated within the paper itself for decades and decades. You knew when you were encountering an opinion and when you were encountering a news story.

Brian Lehrer: Just to take two examples of veneral older Washington Post opinion columnists whose names people might know, do they now fire Eugene Robinson because he's not super libertarian, but keep George Will? You know what I mean?

Paul Farhi: Yes, I certainly know what you mean. The question of firing might not be as important as the question of resigning. Do the opinion writers, the columnists at the Post, Pulitzer Prize winners like Gene Robinson, do they want to stick around? There has been in the last few months a steady exodus of reporters and opinion-side people who've left. With this radical change, it would not surprise me one bit if we see a series of resignations of some of the most talented people at the Post.

Brian Lehrer: To further clarify these categories we're talking about and what Bezos is actually saying, this is not supposed to affect the actual news stories, the reporting, as opposed to the opinion writing, correct?

Paul Farhi: That is correct. There has been no judgment made on how the Post will cover anything in the news side. That, again, separate from the opinion side, this is all about the opinion side.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned a category I hadn't thought of, which is letters to the editor. If Bezos is saying opposing points of view to personal liberties and free markets will be left to other places, will they not take letters to the editor disagreeing with their editorials or opinion writers on these topics?

Paul Farhi: Again, it's a great question. We have no answer for that. Again, letters to the editor have been published for literally more than a century. Will they continue? Again, I'm in the dark about that.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take our first phone call, and Marissa in Brooklyn is going to give us a history take on this topic. Marissa, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.

Marissa: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, my question is about the history of vague, bossy rich people, specifically, newspaper folks like Hearst, who in history had a lot of control over the newspaper. Is this a repeated dynamic? Is it history repeating itself? How much control did someone like him have? What did that do to the news at the time? What could we see repeating itself now with Bezos doing this to the Washington Post and no other implications as other billionaires could purchase other news outlets?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, great question, right?

Paul Farhi: It sure is.

Brian Lehrer: That is the history of newspapers to a meaningful degree. They were owned by wealthy individuals who used them as vehicles to promote their own interests or points of view. Maybe we're returning to something more explicitly that for most of this country's history always was.

Paul Farhi: Yes. Newspapers have literally been the voice of the establishment of wherever they were published. If you were reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer or you were in Cleveland, the Plain Dealer would tell you, we think it's a good idea that you vote for this person for mayor and we do this development down the block. They have always been a reflection of the owners of those papers. That has not changed under Bezos. What's changing here is how radically this will reflect his personal priorities, possibly to the exclusion of any other topics.

We'll see how it plays out. That seems to be what this is about. Let's talk about free markets and personal liberties and forget about what's happening to the government. Let's forget about what's happening to the local team, et cetera. All of the things that the newspaper used to opine about.

Brian Lehrer: Although I think in fairness his statement did say that they will take a variety of opinions on other things, but when it comes to personal liberties and free markets, they'll only be one-sided. One thing and we'll come back to more history. Marissa, thank you for starting us down that track. One thing many listeners must be suspecting. I'm just going to say this, this question, is Bezos doing this to toady up to Trump in some way because he's afraid of something Trump might do to him or do to Amazon? Do you have any evidence or informed speculation one way or another on that?

Paul Farhi: Yes, and there is a good reason for that speculation. First of all, I don't buy it on this instance, but I can see how people came to that conclusion. Let's go back a few months. The big deal was when Bezos spiked the endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. That was a shock. The Post had endorsed mainly Democrats for a very long time. He said, no, we're not going to take a stand on that. That got everybody riled up as to the notion that he is now kowtowing to Trump. Since then, Amazon gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration. Bezos appeared at the inauguration, he congratulated Trump on X.

There was this sense that he was tilting very much toward Trump and that perhaps that the Post was going to be his vehicle for toadying to Trump in service of his very big business interests. I don't see this announcement yesterday as part of that pattern. Trump is not particularly interested in personal liberties. He's pro-abortion. Personal liberty would be-- Excuse me, Trump is anti-abortion. Personal liberties would suggest you would be pro-abortion. Free markets. Trump is even this morning announcing new tariffs. That's not exactly free markets. I don't know that this is a bone being thrown to Trump. Again, we'll see how it plays out, but it doesn't appear that it fits this pattern just yet.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "On the face of it, Bezos's announcement is self-contradictory. It restricts freedom of expression while advocating for personal liberty." Huh, Writes one listener.

Paul Farhi: Yes, good point. If you're going to exclude or marginalize other voices, that's not exactly personal liberties, is it?

Brian Lehrer: Also, is this a funny time to be digging in on free markets? Aren't both major parties in this country pulling back from the globalization of the past 30 years because they both think it's degraded the American middle class?

Paul Farhi: Right. Here's where Bezos's business interests coincide with his ownership of the Washington Post. The notion that we should have free markets so Amazon can do as it pleases, the source of Bezos's enormous wealth, that seems to be part of this sinister analysis of what Bezos is doing. Yes, that is problematic.

Brian Lehrer: Michelle in Brownsville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michelle. Thank you for calling in.

Michelle: Hi, Brian. I'm going to push back a little bit. I think we're being so naive in this conversation. We just witnessed the bloodletting at MSNBC this week. For the first time, the notion that you fire six reporters of color and the optics of that doesn't actually stop the action. You literally say, "All six people of color, you're out of here." This Black woman who is a powerhouse, she gets tossed out and there's absolutely no recourse. Personal liberties--

Brian Lehrer: MSNBC argues, "Wait, Joy Reid--" This is commercial television. Joy Reid had low ratings. They replaced her with three more hosts of color in that time slot. Two Black hosts, one Latina. It wasn't an attack on people of color. That's MSNBC's position. What do you say?

Michelle: Position? No, I understand. No, it's less about the color of the person. Kinfolk is not always kinfolk. Joy Reid is a very powerful voice. Very, very different than other voices. It's not just about the shade of these people. It's about the power and the authority that they bring to the seat. If you think about Mossadoon Perry, also these amazing, powerful Black women that were thrown out or fired. To come back to this conversation, personal liberties as in the age of Trump means something very different. Like if you talk about being pro-abortion, being pro-gay marriage, being pro-gay rights, Republicans have never believed in those things.

To me, when I read personal liberties, I hear guns, guns, and guns. I think that we are a little bit frogs that are being boiled alive right now. The Fifth Estate is essentially being dismantled, and we are all watching it, and we don't know what to do. I've been listening all week. That Andy Kim conversation made me absolutely crazy because we actually need to start fighting. We're at war, and we are literally behaving like, "Oh, this is normal." Like this is normal.

Trying to interpret what more does Bezos needs to show us about where he stands? Him sitting in that personal family box, with Trump during-- all of that stuff.

Brian Lehrer: Inauguration.

Michelle: The donations, all of those things. What more do we need to know? It is very, very clear the Fifth Estate is being dismantled in front of our eyes to advocate a particularly-- the erasure. Not just like, "Oh, this is a policy." This is the erasure of the last 50, 60 years of the progress of this country. Do not be surprised if the Civil Rights Act, all of those things are completely overturned. Just we go back to a time where literally, as a Black woman, I cannot walk down the street without being tormented. That is the stakes that we're at.

To bring this back to this conversation, the games Democrats are playing, where like, "Oh, we don't--" These geriatric elders, I love them, but they've got to go. We literally are bringing butter knife to a AK47 fight. We are literally at war. We're just like we don't understand what's happening. What more do we need to know?

Brian Lehrer: Michelle, thank you very much. Call us again. Paul, I don't know if you listen to the show. We get calls like this every day. She mentioned New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, who was on the other day. Some people, a decent number of people are so inflamed at their Democratic elected officials for not shouting from the rooftops that this country is facing an existential threat to its democracy.

I guess that as it relates to this Washington Post Jeff Bezos conversation, I guess one of the questions we could ask is instead of digging in on personal liberties and free markets as the guiding light of his opinion pages going forward, why isn't he digging in on the slogan that the Washington Post took after Trump's first election, which is democracy dies in darkness, hello, people. The basic democratic existence of this country, not to mention the equality that Michelle was talking about or further increasing the inequality, that's the thing that's really the centerpiece of the debate that's taking place in America today, not whether we should have tariffs.

Paul Farhi: Yes. That's why, again, this change in the editorial side of the Washington Post is so baffling to us at a time of crisis, as your caller points out. This is what we want to emphasize. It just seems to miss the moment completely. I do want to push back in this sense. Again, this is not affecting the news side of the Washington Post, which if you read the news side of the Washington Post, has done a phenomenally good job of covering everything that has been going on. Not everything, but many of the major things that are going on. If you read the Washington Post, you will be as informed as anyone and perhaps outraged based on the facts that are being reported every single day.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Keep calling and texting.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To reset, we're talking about the announcement yesterday from the owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, who of course also owns Amazon, that the Post on its opinion pages will now publish "every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets." He wrote viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. He wrote there was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the Internet does that job, Jeff Bezos wrote.

We're discussing this with some of you and with Paul Farhi, who is a 25-year Washington Post staffer, including the last 13 years of his tenure there covering the media. He left in 2023. Let's talk some history. In your article, The Long Slow Death of the Newspaper Editorial on the Nieman Report site, you remind us that newspaper editorials predate America itself. How so?

Paul Farhi: Before the founding of the Republic, there were pamphlets, Tom Paine being the most famous, that were nothing but opinions. "Let's get rid of the British, let's get rid of the king." This sparked the revolution itself. The way in which you influenced the public was through the printed press and through editorials. Newspapers did have some news reporting, obviously, but primarily they were about opinions and points of view. They were partisan. They supported certain parties overtly. It was a somewhat different world of publishing, to say the least.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Moving up in time, during most of our country's history, and one caller touched on this already, before the Internet, maybe before television. Would it be accurate to say that people subscribed to newspapers because of their editorial takes? It was a kind of identity, maybe not that different from today if you subscribe to a more liberal or more conservative or other political stance paper.

Paul Farhi: Yes, in some sense we are a bit back to the future. It's more of an aberration that in the last century or so, the media tried to play it down the middle. The reason they tried to play it down the middle politically, both in their opinion and news sections, was because it maximized the readership. You're not going to alienate the Democrats by being overtly Republican, and you're not going to vice versa. They tried to evolve this model of neutrality, if not so much in opinion, certainly in news coverage. That's still in some ways the standard today, although that's eroding as well.

You come into the Internet era and partisanship begins to take over. It has been taking over our mainstream news organizations for some time. The Washington Post, I must say, has held the line. The New York Times holds the line. You'll get criticism coming from every direction as to how partisan they really truly are. Nevertheless, the model has been to try and appeal to both sides by not taking a stand. The opinion pages slightly different. The Washington Post, New York Times have been basically liberal progressive over the years, centrist as well, but rarely conservative. That's still the case. Again, we'll see what Jeff Bezos has in mind. As you've said, Brian, it seems more libertarian than anything else.

Brian Lehrer: You would agree, I guess, that the dawning of network television, mid-20th century as so dominant, led to an aberration. You used that word in the history of journalism. The idea of something that did not emphasize opinion or, let's say, acknowledge its point of view, which we could call transparency as well as trying to control people, was an accident of history. In a way, we've returned to the way things always used to be with different news organizations or how you set your social media feeds, reflecting your echo chamber more than some quest for objectivity and nuance.

Paul Farhi: That's right. I think that old model or the model of the last century of this objective reporting, we're going to lose something very, very important in our public life, which is a fair shot at the facts. If every story you approach comes from a point of view or a strong partisan point of view politically, how are we going to know actually what the neutral, or at least less partisan facts are? I grew up in that world. I'm sure you did, too. If you're old enough, you came to expect that. That's falling apart now. People seem to be going, as you say, into their silos, wanting reinforcement of their points of view rather than a straight recitation of what's actually happening.

Brian Lehrer: Now, on Bezos's claim that politically diverse newspaper opinion pages aren't needed as much anymore because different opinions are so accessible online. I'll read a text and I'll take a caller. Listener writes, "It's interesting that Bezos has directed us to go to the Internet for diversity of thought. Has he forgotten that most algorithms do the exact opposite?" We'll take Bill in Yorkville to build on that or add another aspect to it. Bill, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Bill: Hey, Brian, thanks so much for taking my call. Love your show as always. Hi to your guest. I made a few real quick points to the screener, I guess with this idea of the Internet. I find it incredibly disingenuous for a lot of the reasons that you touched on already. Some thoughts I had are that there have always been alternate sites for opinion. Your guest mentioned pamphleteers. We have the town square, we have television. We now have the Internet. I agree with that texter that I'm sorry, but the Internet doesn't do a great job of curating a balanced and serious set of opinions for individual users of whatever, X, Bluesky, whatever it might be.

I think beyond that, you also asked the question of if he had stated there's a different core philosophy and if it were my own personal philosophy, would I be cheering this on? I wouldn't be because, again, I think the statement's disingenuous about us relying on the Internet. The moment's extraordinary. There is a president and an executive branch that is testing the limits to the extreme and in my opinion, clearly has gone beyond several bright lines. This isn't a moment where we're going to back off and say, "Hey, let's just have an open conversation about the issues of the day."

I agree with other callers that this is a dangerous moment. We're in a national crisis. One other quick thing I want to say about his announcing that personal liberty is going to be one of the core topics of discussion. I think it's an amorphous and meaningless term, just in the same way that Republicans have used CRT and now DEI. What does that even mean? I have my opinions about what they mean when they say that, but what is personal liberty in these days? Look at it very, very clearly and objectively.

What the Republican Party is arguing that personal liberty means is, for example, individuals with religious views and opinions may now discriminate against those if whatever service they're providing violates their personal oath. There's Kim Davis. There's the cake for a gay marriage. There's personal objections from physicians who don't want to provide care they don't agree with. For me, the whole thing stinks from top to bottom.

Brian Lehrer: At the same time, they don't want families with trans kids to have the personal liberty to choose hormone blockers or whatever for those kids if they and their doctors think they're in the child's best interest. There's also hypocrisy there, too. Paul, on the media question, what are you thinking as you heard the text that I read and Bill's call?

Paul Farhi: Yes. It is infuriating in some sense, because what Bezos is saying is that the Internet provides a wide range of opinions. The Internet provides a whole lot of things. It provides news as well that doesn't abdicate or should not reflect on what the Post's role in all of this is. It basically sells out the Post's obligation or mission to provide both the news and the editorial point of view of the Post. People subscribe to the Post because they want to know what the Post has to say. They don't care or they care less what the Internet has to say.

For him to say, the Internet is now providing these things, that's not the issue. The issue is what is the Washington Post going to provide, and what is the Washington Post's point of view, and what does the Washington Post news reporting say? I'm not sure why that is in any way a rationale for this decision he's made.

Brian Lehrer: As people do gravitate to their echo chambers, I think increasingly these days, for you, as a longtime media reporter, do you think people really use the opinion pages in the way that Bezos says is obsolete? I'll read you one text from a listener who says he does. Listener writes, "I love the opinion pages. Mostly read the New York Times, but others too well-written ideas that can open windows into other viewpoints. I don't agree with all I read, but appreciate the diversity." How many people are left like that today? Are people reading the Washington Post opinion pages for that diversity? If Bezos is making a case that it's anachronistic, is he right?

Paul Farhi: The fact is that editorial pages of newspapers have a very small but dedicated readership. If you do look at reader surveys, what did you read or count up the clicks? Editorials are of low priority, which is why a lot of newspapers have gotten rid of their institutional editorials and their op-ed pages because it is a low priority. It, however, is something that newspapers have done literally for centuries. It's part of the supermarket of what a newspaper has always been. You don't like the sports section, you can read the Metro section, you don't Metro, you can read the front page. Editorials were one extra feature of a newspaper, and we are losing that, or in the Washington Post case, we're changing that radically.

Brian Lehrer: We referenced early in the conversation that Bezos is saying, this is about the opinion pages, the editorials, and the op-ed columnists, and things like that, not about the news reporting. Here's a question for you from a listener. Listener writes, "Does this reporter really not think that the editorial tone of their news reporting will shift right following the opinion pages? I fear we're heading toward all media outlets leaning right in fear/deference to this president. It feels one rung below state media."

There's the overarching concern about one rung below state media. There's also the specific question for you there, Paul. If this is where Bezos is pushing the opinion pages, isn't it logical to think that this is going to be where he pushes the slant of the news stories?

Paul Farhi: No, it's not logical to think that, and I'll tell you why. Bezos buys the paper in 2013. In all those years since, almost a dozen now, I cannot think of one instance in which he put his thumb on the scale of the newsroom and said, "We must write a story or write a story this way, the way I prefer it to be written." I know of no instance in which he has said the news side is now under my influence. I certainly understand the paranoia behind the question. I just don't think there's any evidence to suggest that it exists or is going to exist. By the way, if it did exist, a lot of the reporters I know at the Washington Post would be former reporters at the Washington Post.

Brian Lehrer: History note from a listener in a text regarding TV, don't forget equal time rules. Reagan took them away. The so-called fairness doctrine. That required broadcasters because before cable, before the web, radio and television frequencies were considered scarce. The government got to allocate them and they came with these equal time rules and fairness doctrine, so-called rules, if you were dealing with issues of public importance. That went away in the 1980s and the Internet exploded the whole notion of that, that anybody would control such a thing.

Paul Farhi: More importantly, talk radio came to its fruition in the '90s as a result of that going away. In other words, because you can put opinion on without having to put a counter opinion on. You had the likes of Rush Limbaugh and a whole lot of other conservative talk radio hosts. That was the primary effect. Then we get into the era of cable television, which had plenty of opinions. The FCC, the government doesn't regulate cable. News shows on broadcast television became more opinionated too. The fact is, the real effect of the fairness doctrine going away was talk radio, and we have that to this day.

Brian Lehrer: Before we run out of time, we've been talking primarily about the Washington Post per se, but it is, after all, only one newspaper. I think in your Nieman Reports piece, you put the decline of newspaper editorials generally in the context of the decline of local news around the country. What's the relationship, as you see it, between what Jeff Bezos announced for the Washington Post opinion pages and local news that serves local communities about their local school boards and their local city councils and everything and opinion writing in those contexts? Are we focusing too narrowly on the Washington Post? Is there a bigger issue here that this pertains to, or is this just Jeff Bezos in the iconic Washington Post bubble?

Paul Farhi: Yes, they're only somewhat related. The Washington Post is an unusual newspaper in that it is both a local newspaper to some extent, but it's also a national and international newspaper. We have a few of those. The New York Times, maybe the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post in this category. Then more than a thousand daily newspapers across the country really aren't international or national in any real meaningful way. They are local newspapers and hardly a news flash to anyone. Local newspapers are under a lot of financial, economic pressure and have been for the past 25 years since the Internet came around.

There has been a severe diminishment to the extent of wiping out local news reporting. In many places around the country, we have this concept of the news desert, where there is no local professional reporting to tell you what the mayor or the school board or the city council is doing. Half the counties in America do not have a professional source of news at this point. These issues are somewhat related. The real pressure on news is at the local level. It's not really quite as severe at the national level, where there is only a small group of players.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Do you, as a longtime media reporter, think this is a good business decision for Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post? After they canceled the Kamala Harris editorial endorsement in the fall, 250,000 people canceled their Washington Post subscriptions from what I read. I don't know what the fallout is going to be from this yet, but is this a good business decision?

Paul Farhi: I think it's a terrible business decision, and it's shocking to me because Jeff Bezos, by his track record, is one of the smartest business people that America has ever produced. It's shocking because what is the upside versus what is the downside as a business? As you mentioned, readers are primed to cancel their Washington Post subscription because they suspect that Bezos is lurching the paper to the right, and this is not going to convince them otherwise. I think that's a bad decision. Please don't cancel your subscription. There's a lot of good reporters and reporting that's being done by the Washington Post, but I can understand that people are going to do that.

It's also bad for the Washington Post because it has roiled the staff, and there's going to be more resignations in a series of resignations over the last few months. I don't see a whole lot of upside of people racing to get to the Washington Post to read that new editorial about how tariffs are bad or good, all of the downsides are much larger and are likely to hurt the Post rather than help it.

Brian Lehrer: Paul Farhi, these days a freelance writer. As the Washington Post website reminds us, however, he was a staff writer there from 1988 to 2023, and from 2010 onward, he covered media. One piece of recent work that led us to him for this conversation was an article for the journalism issues site Nieman Reports called The Long Slow Death of the Newspaper Editorial. Paul, thanks for coming on.

Paul Farhi: Thank you, Brian.

 

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