How to Fix the Washington Post, and Media in General

A radical, simple way to transform American journalism.

As soon as news broke of the Washington Post laying off about a third of its staff, the recriminations began. If only owner Jeff Bezos hadn’t caved to President Donald Trump and his movement, everything would be fine, the argument went.

There’s no doubt that Bezos took a dark turn at the Post in apparently working to ingratiate himself with Trump. But the Post also has the same problems that plague much of legacy media.

(CatLane/iStock)

News giants have lost Americans’ trust by failing to do the job: provide the truth, always. I dig into this in the new episode of They Stand Corrected, my podcast and newsletter fact checking the news.

Listen & subscribe anywhere.

Many people remember that Bezos pulled the Post’s planned endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. As I explained then, if a paper’s owner wants to end all endorsements from the editorial board, fine. Do that, but not days before an election in which one of the candidates threatened to use presidential power to punish said owner and his other businesses — in Bezos’ case, Amazon.

In spiking the editorial, Bezos argued that endorsements create perceptions of bias and “non-independence.” But he demonstrated something else: that he would not stand by the paper. Reports at the time said more than 250,000 people canceled their subscriptions.

Bezos continued to cozy up to Trump, sitting with other billionaires at the inauguration. A month later, he announced that the Post’s op-ed section would move in a new direction, “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

These changes led even more subscribers to give up on the paper. And throughout all this, some well-known Post writers left, including Contrarian co-founder Jen Rubin.

But focusing only on the political shift means tuning out the foundational rot that plagues the Post and many other news giants. Major news outlets routinely publish and air falsehoods. It’s no wonder that, in the latest Gallup survey, only 28% of Americans said they trust “newspapers, television, and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” It’s a new low.

During my 20 years in big mainstream media, I saw firsthand how the industry was turning into an “open mic” platform for lies. Now, I invite listeners and readers to send me examples of lies flying freely in Big Media. I’m constantly overwhelmed with messages.

I’ve reported on dozens of examples from the Post. Here at The Contrarian, I wrote about the paper using the term “deficit hawk” to describe lawmakers who are clearly not deficit hawks, fueling the myth that the GOP is more financially responsible with taxpayer dollars. Inside news agencies, many reporters and editors don’t even realize that Republican administrations routinely add more to the debt. The media’s messaging helps push self-described fiscal conservative voters to support Republican candidates.

In another example, Dr. Dara Kass, an emergency room physician and former regional director at the Department of Health and Human Services, joined me to discuss how bad reporting endangered the lives of pregnant women. In the rush to create clickbait headlines, the Post gave up on accuracy.

The public is keeping score. I created something called The Media Fail Awards, inviting subscribers to weigh in on which news agency had the biggest disasters. The Post racked up votes.

Here’s a radical idea: What if — as crazy as it sounds — a news agency reported only fact-checked information? What if it stopped rushing to tell audiences what people said, and instead investigated whether what they said was accurate? (The Post was among the many news organizations that shared Trump’s lie about Biden having let in “20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners,” without pausing for a fact check.)

There are phenomenal journalists inside the Post and other legacy media organizations who want this to happen. Many have become trusted sources for They Stand Corrected, alerting me to problems.

The media plays a crucial role in a democracy. To decide how to vote, what issues to support, and what to protest, we need the two ingredients of truth: facts and context.

Some people say the success of Fox and other right-wing outlets proves that many Americans aren’t looking for the truth. But I keep finding that there is an audience for it.

It’s worth a shot. Call me an optimist, but one with experience to justify this belief: A news agency thoroughly devoted to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can succeed.

Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.

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