Inside WaPo’s ‘identity crisis’

CNN Reliable Sources: “Since the beginning of this year, The Atlantic has hired twelve journalists away from The Washington Post. The New York Times has poached at least ten Posties. CNN has picked up half a dozen. The Post exodus is one of those things that rival editors whisper about, sounding mystified as they ask, “How is Jeff Bezos letting this happen?” The New Yorker‘s Clare Malone is out with a comprehensive new story about Bezos and the Post this morning. I found myself agreeing with the “former top editor” she quotes at the beginning of the story. The source says “this is all a story about Jeff and how he changed over the course of his ownership and really became a different person, with huge implications for the institution.” Bezos, Malone writes, weathered Trump’s attacks and withstood the White House’s pressure during Trump’s first term in office, then welcomed Joe Biden‘s arrival, only to see Amazon sued by the Biden-era FTC. “Bezos felt a sense of betrayal,” Malone reports. (And now, she adds, the Trump-era FTC has the authority to settle the case against Amazon.) Malone also digs deep into Post publisher William Lewis and the widespread doubts about his leadership. “In exit interviews” with some of the dozens who have left for The Atlantic et al, “staff members have attributed their departures to Lewis’s lack of a discernible plan for the paper.”..