Thursday, February 5, 2026

Good-bye, Washington Post

After an increasingly acrimonious relationship, I divorced the Washington Post yesterday, after 40+ years. (Due to previous financial commitments, the final separation will not take place until March 15.)

 

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/media/washington-post-layoffs

https://montgomeryperspective.com/2026/02/05/democracy-dies-in-darkness-at-the-washington-post/

 

There was, of course, Bezos squashing the already-written 2024 Presidential election endorsement. The reduction in the number of op-ed columns, and the departure of most of my favorite opinion columnists. The increasingly snarky tone of the Editorial Board, with its unhealthy fixation on Zohran Mamdani and its apparent conclusion that the biggest threat to the U.S. is “progressives” and “socialists”, not Trump and MAGA.

 

While yesterday’s layoffs of virtually everyone in the Sports department hit me the hardest personally, the cuts to the Metro and International staffs were also devastating, none more so than the axing of Lizzie Johnson in the middle of her courageous stint in Ukraine.

 

2 comments:

  1. A long goodbye. Sorry.
    BTW - saw the Springsteen movie yesterday. Did not care for it at all - with the exception of the shots of Freehold and Asbury Park.

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    1. I've had a promotional digital subscription to the New York Times for two years now, and plan to convert that to an old-school print subscription, probably next week.

      I saw the movie at a Monday afternoon showing right after it came out. It was with my friend Linda, whom you probably remember from the Nats game. (As a true die-hard, she had already seen it with some other folks the previous Thursday night, the day before the "official" release.)

      We were the only two people in the theater.

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