This week, The Washington Post unveiled its fresh internal mission commentary: “Riveting Storytelling for All of The US.” If that sounds love something generated by an AI knowledgeable exclusively on LinkedIn posts and advertising and marketing textbooks … well, apt wait till you hear in regards to the PowerPoint deck within the again of it.
Fixed with The Novel York Times, Post chief approach officer Suzi Watford provided executives with a chase deck that would possibly presumably well create even basically the most seasoned corporate manual draw back. The centerpiece? A “Substantial Furry Brave Function” of reaching 200 million paying users.
Quit for a second to admire apt how disconnected from fact that quantity is. The Post for the time being has fewer than three million digital subscribers. The Times, which leads the trade, has about 11 million total. Truly, the Times experiences that the Post, TimesAxios, and Politico combined don’t even reach 100 million month-to-month viewers—and that entails nonpaying readers.
The deck goes on to remark the Post as “an AI-fueled platform for knowledge” that delivers “crucial knowledge, tips and insights for all Americans where, how and when they wish it.” Here is the more or less corporate word salad which intention completely nothing while sounding vaguely crucial. What makes a platform “AI-fueled”? How is that diverse from apt … using laptop programs? Don’t danger about these crucial parts—view at all these buzzwords!
The presentation laid out three pillars of the Post’s plan: “gargantuan journalism,” “happy customers,” and “create money.” Innovative stuff right here, of us. Who would maintain opinion a newspaper need to easy attain journalism and compare out to create money? Thank goodness for management consultants.
Nonetheless right here’s where the corporate draw back affords intention to something more regarding. The Post has been progressively racy upright since hiring Will Lewis as CEO closing twelve months, and now it’s “actively infected about suggestions to sharply lengthen the amount of opinion commentary printed on its web draw.” This comes as Jeff Bezos, basically based mostly totally on the Timeshas expressed hobby in expanding the Post’s audience among conservatives and reaching more “blue-collar Americans who’re residing originate air coastal cities, stating of us love firefighters in Cleveland.”
The timing isn’t coincidental. Last twelve months, Lewis oversaw the ouster of standard and revered govt editor Sally Buzbee. The Post’s newsroom has been in turmoil ever since, with greater than 400 staff apt sending Bezos a letter about leadership choices they are saying maintain “led readers to place a query to the integrity of this institution.” When knowledge organizations originate talking about reaching “all of The US” while simultaneously planning to pump up their opinion sections and pushing out leadership that won’t play ball, it in overall intention one component: a calculated rightward shift below the guise of “balance.”
The timing right here is specifically well off. The Post adopted “Democracy Dies in Darkness” as its slogan when Trump entered the White Dwelling in 2017. Now, as he prepares to return, they’re pivoting to … “riveting storytelling”? Nothing says talking fact to energy slightly love sounding love a Netflix quarterly earnings call.
The deck did encompass one inadvertently factual second, citing Eugene Meyer’s 1935 principles for the paper, including, “The newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the general public at immense, and now to not the deepest pursuits of its dwelling owners.” It’s a noble sentiment. It’s furthermore totally at odds with all the things else on this corporate rebranding say.
This issues attributable to the Post isn’t apt any newspaper. It’s an crucial institution for American democracy—something its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan, that will remain, if truth be told will get upright. Nonetheless while democracy would possibly presumably well die in darkness, it’ll furthermore die in PowerPoint presentations that treat journalism love a product to be optimized and repackaged for optimum market penetration.
The Post lost $77 million in 2023. That’s a true spot that needs true solutions. Nonetheless chasing an imaginary audience with buzzwords and AI guarantees while pivoting upright isn’t going to fix it. It’s apt going to extra erode have faith in one of The US’s most considerable knowledge institutions.
As a minimum it’ll be riveting, though. And hi there, perhaps they would possibly be able to salvage ChatGPT to jot down some of these fresh opinion objects. After all, they’re already an “AI-fueled platform.”
