Former Washington Submit Staffers Slam Billionaire Bezos for Gutting Paper

The Washington Submit has laid off greater than 300 journalists, dismantling its sports activities, native information and worldwide protection. “All people is grieving, and it’s a loss for our readers,” says Nilo Tabrizy, one of many paper’s lately laid-off workers, who describes a “robotic” assembly saying the cuts. “They didn’t have the dignity to look us within the eye.” The stunning workers culling has been broadly attributed to the paper’s management beneath Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who purchased the almost 150-year-old establishment in 2013. Karen Attiah, the previous world opinion editor on the Submit, was employed quickly after Bezos’s arrival. She recounts how the arrival of a billionaire backer initially revitalized the paper with assets and artistic freedom, earlier than souring over the subsequent decade. “We thought [he] shared the identical values that we had,” says Attiah, who was fired from the Submit final fall over feedback she made in regards to the dying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “Journalism deserves higher than a billionaire proprietor who decides that partying in Europe is extra essential than folks’s lives.”

TRANSCRIPT

This can be a rush transcript. Copy might not be in its remaining kind.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to remain on the media proper now. In what’s been described a “massacre,” The Washington Submit has laid off greater than 300 journalists, about 30% of all its workers, dismantling its sports activities, native information and worldwide protection, together with all the newspaper’s Center East correspondents and editors. The Submit’s Ukraine reporter Lizzie Johnson wrote on X, quote, “I used to be simply laid off by The Washington Submit in the midst of a struggle zone,” she wrote from Ukraine.

On Thursday, fired employees rallied exterior The Washington Submit workplace. That is the reporter Ben Brasch, who was fired Tuesday.

BEN BRASCH: These layoffs are shameful!

FIRED WORKERS: Disgrace!

BEN BRASCH: The fourth-richest particular person on the planet, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Submit. He can run it at a loss for the remainder of time, and but he refuses! And as a substitute, he’s spending tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} shopping for a documentary for Melania Trump to curry favor with the president of the US. When folks present you who they’re, imagine them. Billionaires solely get wealthy by stealing from us.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Submit in 2013. [In 2024], the paper misplaced over 250,000 digital subscribers after the paper introduced it might not make an endorsement within the presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Bezos’s Amazon later donated one million {dollars} to Trump’s inaugural fund.

We’re joined proper now by two friends. Karen Attiah, former world opinion editor for The Washington Submit, was fired final yr over social media posts made after the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk. Nilo Tabrizy is an investigative reporter who intently covers Iran. She was simply laid off from The Washington Submit yesterday.

Nilo, let’s begin with you, what’s being termed a “massacre,” 300 workers of The Washington Submit, a 3rd of The Washington Submit. You write about Iran. Speak about what occurred in Iran. Speak about what occurred with the Center East protection, general, and what’s occurred with all your colleagues.

NILO TABRIZY: Yeah. Thanks. I’m glad to be right here to debate what occurred on the Submit.

So, our total Center East workers was laid off. A lot of the worldwide desk was dismantled, as nicely. And that is one thing that we heard was coming down within the newsroom just a few weeks in the past. And we additionally heard that when this plan was offered to Peter Finn, who’s the pinnacle of the worldwide desk and mentor to many on the Submit, he mentioned to them he would quite be laid off than cope with this horrible gutting and reconstruction, because it was, you recognize, phrased.

So, it’s been extremely miserable. All people is grieving. And it’s a loss for our readers. It’s a loss for everybody. And the way in which the corporate is framing, you recognize, that we wish to focus extra on nationwide safety, nicely, worldwide reporters and nationwide safety, I imply, these two desks collaborate a lot with one another. And so, it’s a deeply grim second.

And, you recognize, as a member of the Submit Guild, within the union at The Washington Submit, we’re fortunate to have the guild struggle for us, however worldwide workers, they’re not members of the guild. And even worse, there are such a lot of native employees that we work with on the Submit. We have now native drivers, translators, reporters that collaborate with our bureau chiefs and with our correspondents. These persons are not protected in the identical means that I’m. And so, it’s extremely terrible. There’s no phrases to explain the dismantling that’s occurring on the Submit.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nilo, I needed to ask you, particularly this entire difficulty of the worldwide reporting, with so few U.S. media firms nonetheless having even a skeleton workers of reporters reporting on affairs exterior the US: What does that flip The Washington Submit into? And in addition, what does that say in regards to the potential of the media within the U.S. to let folks know on this nation what’s occurring in the remainder of the world?

NILO TABRIZY: Proper. I imply, it’s an entire disservice. I imply, we do that job as a result of we wish to be in service to the general public. That is the primary intention for thus many people. And taking the flexibility away to do this sort of reporting to speak what’s essential, I imply, it’s a disservice to our readership and to anybody who needs to have interaction in these points. I imply, my final story that I did for the Submit, which revealed on Monday, the day earlier than I obtained laid off, was in regards to the buildup that we’re seeing of vessels, of U.S. army tools within the Persian Gulf, and doubtlessly there is likely to be some kind of strike. And now the Submit shouldn’t be nicely positioned to cowl that. And it’s extremely heartbreaking.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I’d prefer to deliver Karen Attiah into the dialog, as nicely. Karen, your response to those layoffs? And Jeff Bezos was — whereas they have been occurring, was really in Paris at a Haute Couture Week?

KAREN ATTIAH: Yeah, I imply, I joined the Submit, and particularly the opinion part, proper after Bezos purchased the paper, so in about 2014. And I used to be, you recognize, there after we have been sort of using excessive, principally. We had not solely Bezos money — proper? — however we had the permission, in lots of methods, to have the ability to be inventive, so as to have the ability to be swashbuckling, provocative. And for many of my time, an excellent chunk of my time within the opinion part, I used to be the worldwide opinions editor, and we had a direct mandate, principally, from Bezos, saying that he needed The Washington Submit to be a world newspaper, that he needed us to be the English-speaking newspaper that the remainder of the world turned to. So, that’s why, you recognize, I started working recruiting writers and increase that part of worldwide writers, together with Jamal Khashoggi, who was very brutally murdered in 2018. Jeff Bezos, we thought, shared the identical values that we had, significantly when it got here to worldwide protection and for standing up for journalists who weren’t capable of converse freely of their areas of the world.

And now to see him butchering the Submit, or not less than, on the very least, partying in Paris and in Europe whereas so a lot of my colleagues are being unceremoniously kicked out of their job, at a time when America desperately must know what’s occurring in its personal neighborhood and on the planet, it’s simply — it’s unconscionable, frankly.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Karen Attiah, you have been the previous world opinion editor for The Washington Submit. You platformed many brave voices, together with Jamal Khashoggi, who can be murdered within the embassy in Turkey. And all of the intelligence studies from the businesses of the US authorities pointed the finger at an expensive ally of President Trump, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Your ideas in your ousting? Yeah, it was the time of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, however what you represented on the Submit?

KAREN ATTIAH: , a lot about that is — breaks my coronary heart nonetheless to at the present time. What breaks my coronary heart is, sure, being able to offer writers a house in instances the place they couldn’t, and now once they ask, “Effectively, the place can we be heard? The place can our voices go?” and I can’t, in good conscience, say that they’ve a protected place in The Washington Submit anymore.

, I feel, for me, you recognize, I used to be illegally, I’ll say, fired for posting very — you recognize, posting the details about gun violence on this nation, about race on this nation, and principally, you recognize, fired for doing my job. However the indicators have been all there, the censoring of the opinion web page. When Bezos mentioned that opinions that have been exterior of his scope of free markets and private liberties, that was a pink flashing signal that censorship and purging was going to return for The Washington Submit. I attempted to carry on for so long as I may and do the work that I used to be, you recognize, paid to do for so long as I may, till I couldn’t. I imply, I’m nonetheless persevering with to struggle that termination, as nicely. So, I feel, if something, displaying that we have to stand as much as this purging is much more essential. So, I’m positively combating again, with the help — and never simply the help, however the guild has my again, so I’m grateful for that.

However it is a larger second. There’s a purpose why that is a world information story. I feel The Washington Submit stands for lots greater than only a media firm. It stands for lots greater than even simply journalism, I’d say. For lots of people world wide, they’re The Washington Submit as a proxy and a bellwether for what’s occurring to America and democracy, proper?

And when we aren’t capable of even be capable to freely cowl our personal neighborhoods, be capable to freely cowl the world, be capable to, you recognize, beneath — D.C. being beneath army occupation, principally, with the Nationwide Guard, we are able to’t even retain a various set of journalists in a metropolis that could be very a lot immigrants, folks of coloration. There are most likely, at this level, lower than perhaps 30 Black journalists left. I used to be the final Black columnist left at The Washington Submit, full-time workers opinions columnist left at The Washington Submit. So, the brazenness with which the destruction of the road of protection of journalism in opposition to oppression is simply — it’s as shameless on their finish as it’s merciless. And D.C. deserves higher. This complete area deserves higher. Journalism deserves higher than a billionaire proprietor who decides that, you recognize, partying in Europe is extra essential than folks’s lives. The Washington Submit deserves a greater proprietor than this.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I needed to ask Nilo Tabrizy about this, this huge change in course that Bezos has gone in with The Washington Submit versus how he began, then his muzzling of the editorial web page after which his fawning after Trump with the financing of the Melania movie. What’s your sense of the enormity of this transformation? It’s nearly like a 180-degree activate his half from the place he began.

NILO TABRIZY: Completely. I imply, I can’t say it higher myself. It’s an entire departure from the mission of the Submit and “Democracy dies in darkness.” Effectively, now it’s fully darkish. And what do we now have left?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the motto of The Washington Submit, adopted in 2017.

NILO TABRIZY: Sure, that’s the motto of The Washington Submit, precisely. And it’s actually — yeah, it’s indescribable. And I actually really feel for my Submit colleagues who now have to indicate up and work in a carcass of what this unimaginable establishment was. The Submit was such a particular tradition. It was totally different from every other newsroom I’ve labored in, the place it’s deeply collaborative. Desks weren’t competing for one another. Everybody was there for a similar mission, which was to place out one of the best report. They usually’ve fully dismantled that. And once more, it’s a deep disservice to any of our readers, to our public.

And it reveals the fragility of those establishments and the way essential it’s to guard them, as a result of with one fell swoop, in a horrific layoff, you recognize, 30-minute robotic assembly, through which our writer was not even current — we noticed that our writer, Will Lewis, was at some Tremendous Bowl-related occasion — they didn’t have the dignity to look us within the eye. , folks obtained these mass emails: “Your job is eradicated.”

AMY GOODMAN: And also you have been instructed to not come to work yesterday.

NILO TABRIZY: We have been all instructed to not come to work. We had an 8:30 a.m. Zoom, which, in itself, is unconscionable. After which, after that, workers who even had, you recognize, 27-plus years of service have been instructed they misplaced their job in a one-line electronic mail, the place our writer, once more, was not current. This, once more, actually reveals the shortage of management on the Submit.

AMY GOODMAN: Effectively, we’re going to proceed to cowl this story and proceed to cowl the company media and remind folks Democracy Now! is unbiased. Nilo Tabrizy, simply laid off from The Washington Submit, will stick with us as we discuss Iran subsequent. And Karen Attiah, we thanks a lot for becoming a member of us, former world opinion editor for The Washington Submit.

That is Democracy Now! After we come again, the talks in Oman round Iran, between the US and Iran, after which we’ll discuss Gaza. Stick with us.