Well, well, well. It shouldn't surprise me, but it still kinda does. 

After losing half its readers and hundreds of millions of dollars, the Bezos-owned newspaper is radically shifting strategies. 

Sally Buzbee, the author of this absolute disaster, no doubt left under her own steam to spend more time with her family or something similarly false and anodyne-sounding. It certainly had nothing to do with the wreckage of a once-great and respected news outlet. 

hiring editors from the Telegraph and the WSJ to replace Buzbee, a total disaster, seems very smart and very much a total reversal of course.

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) June 3, 2024

Buzbee does leave a legacy to be proud of: she was the first female to lead the newspaper, proving that DEI hiring certainly has an impact to be proud of. After all, the near-total destruction of the paper should be considered an upside for the health of national discourse. It, along with The New York Times, was one of the major players in perpetrating the Russia collusion fraud (not under her leadership; she helped perpetrate many COVID-related frauds instead). Buzbee wouldn't know news if it happened before her eyes; after all, she was executive editor at the once-great Associated Press prior to joining the Post. 

The Washington Post today announced Sally Buzbee has stepped down as Executive Editor. Buzbee has been with The Washington Post since 2021, leading the newsroom through the turbulence of the pandemic and expanding its service journalism, including Climate and Well+Being. Under her leadership, The Washington Post has won significant awards, including the recent Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

Matt Murray, former Editor in Chief of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), will replace Buzbee as Executive Editor until the 2024 U.S presidential election, after which Robert Winnett, Deputy Editor of The Telegraph Media Group, will take on the new role of Editor at The Washington Post, responsible for overseeing our core coverage areas, including politics, investigations, business, technology, sports and features.

I, for one, thank her for helping inspire this dramatic shake-up. Among other things, it looks like the Post will be putting much of its most egregious propaganda-producers in a new division of the newsroom, and it may even rededicate the regular newsroom to reporting actual news. 

Perhaps. I will believe that when I see it, but clearly there is at least a desire to do so. After all, the interim Executive Editor will be coming from The Wall Street Journal and the permanent replacement will be coming from The Telegraph Group--you may recall, I have recommended The Telegraph in one of my Things I Like columns. 

The Wall Street Journal is not actually a conservative newspaper--it's opinion section is, but much less so the newsroom--but it is superior to both The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Telegraph actually leans centrist and by newspaper standards, is far-right. It probably provides the most objective reporting in the English-speaking world. 

As for moving its advocacy journalism to a new division, I gather this from this part of their press release. It is my interpretation of what this means; they certainly wouldn't admit that their reporting has ever been anything but straight down the middle:

The Washington Post also announced today its intention to launch a new division of the newsroom dedicated to better serving audiences who want to consume and pay for news differently from traditional offerings.

This third newsroom will be comprised of service and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation. The aim is to give the millions of Americans – who feel traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed –compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want.

"Service journalism," I am interpreting, likely means advocacy journalism. You know, the Taylor Lorenz et al-type writers. Perhaps I am reading in more than is meant. We'll have to see about that. 

The Post has become almost a punchline in the world of "news." For conservatives that is because it is so obviously biased, beholden to Washington power-players, and amazingly woke; for liberals because it is owned by a multi-billionaire but is losing money in nearly billion-dollar increments. 

Both liberals and conservatives can no doubt agree that Taylor Lorenz is amazingly funny, too. Laughing at her antics and idiocy is actually more fun than laughing at AOC. At least we know AOC's age and she doesn't still wear a mask. 

Will this shakeup save The Washington Post? I expect it will help, although perhaps I just believe that because a world without the Post would be weird. I have grown up with it dominating news from the city, and Watergate was the first big scandal I remember.