Drama: Jeff Bezos Makes Mercy Dash To HQ As The Newspaper’s Two Top Execs Tussle ‘Over Direction Of The Paper’ — As Staffers Mull Vote Of No Confidence
Jan. 19 2023, Published 2:00 p.m. ET
The two most senior executives at the Washington Post are privately sparring over the direction of the 145-year-old newspaper — so much so, their billionaire boss, Jeff Bezos, traveled to HQ on Wednesday in a bid to calm mounting tensions.
Bezos, who purchased the newspaper in 2013, met with the Post’s chief executive officer, Fred Ryan, while his rival, executive editor Sally Buzbee, was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, RadarOnline.com has confirmed.
Ryan and Buzbee are said to be “at war” as the Post faces subscription losses and diminishing advertising revenue.
Buzbee has trashed talk her boss Ryan, it’s claimed, while she faces internal dissent over her editorship.
At the same time, staff tensions are at boiling point, with many “stunned and visibly pissed” after a December town hall leading to moves to launch a vote of no confidence against Ryan.
Even legendary Post journalist Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, has gone public about the simmering anxiety, telling The New Yorker that Bezos was “aware there’s trouble” at the Post, and that “there needs to be some repair work.”
One staffer even took to social media to post a video of the town hall exchange during which Ryan announced the paper would face layoffs.
“We are not going to turn the town hall into a grievance session,” Ryan responded.
- Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan Steps Down After 9 Years as Jeff Bezos Takes More 'Hands-on Approach' to Save Struggling Paper
- Ex CNN CEO Jeff Zucker Meets with Amazon's Jeff Bezos as Part of a Possible Media Comeback
- Stunning New Report: Cheating Tech Boss Jeff Bezos Sent Mistress An X-Rated ‘D*ck Pic’
Buzbee, who was hired from the Associated Press in May 2021, has begun to publicly criticize her boss “for his lack of strategy around editorial and digital investments,” according to media insider Dylan Byers, who writes for the subscription service Puck.
“Most notably, (Buzbee) told colleagues that she doesn’t know how long Ryan will, or should, remain as C.E.O.,” Byers reported in December.
Buzbee “categorically denied making” ever badmouthing Ryan, Byers said.
“The Ryan-Buzbee fallout has created a seemingly untenable situation at the paper—evidenced most recently by the fact that Ryan did not inform Buzbee about the impending layoffs,” Byers noted.
But Buzbee has also come in for criticism with some suggesting her tone of journalism is “ ponderous inertia” which routinely gets walloped by rivals, the New York Times and Politico.
“Many Post staffers have frustrations with Buzbee’s editorial leadership; they say she is also not a strong leader and has failed to articulate a clear editorial vision for the paper.”
The video of the raucous December meeting of staff was posted to Twitter via the newspaper’s disgruntled guild, which wrote: “At the end of the event, publisher Fred Ryan announced a ‘single-digit decrease’ in the workforce in Q1 of 2023. In the same breath, Ryan said The Post will continue to grow. He didn’t say whether those laid off would be offered the chance to be rehired or reassigned.”
The Guild is preparing a vote of no confidence in Ryan and are “hoping that this public show of frustration will be enough to get the attention” of Bezos “whose views on the Post drama are a mystery to absolutely everyone at the paper,” according to Byers.
“Ryan has privately maintained that he has his boss’s full support, and it’s certainly true that Ryan, with a direct line to Bezos, is able to finesse the narrative,” he reported.