The Jeff Bezos Midas touch has apparently not laid a finger on The Washington Post. And $15,000 for a fake Pulitzer doesn't go very far in the Biden economy.
Set for a $100 million loss in 2023, the leftist publication this week said it would cut 240 positions.
Bezos, who paid $250 million for the Post in 2013, has previously said he wants to keep the venture profitable. Looks like that will be unrealized.
Currently, the D.C.-headquartered company has about 2,600 employees spread across its umbrella - with a little over 1,000 working on the editorial side.
The WaPo website's all-access plan - the only way to view the online paper for the past decade - costs $4 a month, while a relatively recent promotion offers readers a deal for $40 for their first year, and $120 thereafter.
Still, online readership has declined, now to about 2.5 million subscribers from a high of 3 million at the end of 2020.
An internal Post email obtained by The New York Times states: "We have determined that our prior projections for traffic, subscriptions, and advertising growth for the past two years — and into 2024 — have been overly optimistic and we are working to find ways to return our business to a healthier place in the coming year."
The second staff reduction for the Post this year will be made through "voluntary buyouts" to be "evenly distributed," DailyMail.com cited Patty Stonesifer, the publication's interim chief executive officer, as saying.
Inbox: Washington Post is reducing its workforce by approximately 240 positions pic.twitter.com/GFVdGZw2pa
— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) October 10, 2023
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