Ex-Washington Post fact checker hits 'absentee owner' Jeff Bezos
Former Washington Post face checker Glenn Kessler spoke with Fox News Digital about the paper's "absentee owner" Jeff Bezos and the challenges the news outlet faces.
The Washington Post has had a tumultuous few days with only more rockiness on the road ahead as the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" paper faces an ongoing crisis.
Panic at the paper bled onto social media Monday, with staffers sounding the alarm by using the hashtag "#SaveThePost," as reports of major pending layoffs spread in the newsroom. Post leaders have been working for roughly two years to be in a position to break even financially after reported $100 million losses in 2024, and an upcoming headcount reduction is expected to help accomplish that goal.
"It’s a tense period," Glenn Kessler, the Post's former fact-checker, told Fox News Digital. "Many have dedicated their professional careers to the Post and are worried an important American institution is being dismantled."
Billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. (Karwai Tang/WireImage; Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images)
The Post's foreign correspondents penned a letter to the paper's billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, urging him to preserve their beat as it has emerged as a high target in looming budget cuts.
"We are The Washington Post’s international correspondents, writing with a collective plea for you to preserve our newspaper’s global coverage, which we fear will be greatly weakened in coming cuts," they wrote to Bezos.
Bezos, who irked Post staffers by ignoring a petition for him to visit the newsroom when he was in town for President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, has not offered any recent public comment regarding the paper’s issues.
On Monday, as current and former Post journalists begged Bezos to save the paper, he attended the Dior fashion show at the Musée Rodin in Paris, France. His silence has been so frustrating that employees have considered reaching out to celebrities like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep with the hopes a Hollywood heavyweight could get his attention, according to Status. The two actors starred in "The Post," a 2017 movie about the publication of the Pentagon Papers.
The sports section faced a roller coaster of its own after it was initially reported that the Post was forgoing sending any of its journalists to cover the Winter Olympics next month in Italy, a decision that was reversed on Monday following intense blowback. Like the foreign affairs beat, the sports section may also be gutted.
"The Washington Post, the paper I grew up reading, is potentially considering shuttering its sports desk entirely amidst layoffs, isn’t sending baseball reporters to spring training, and in general is just going down the tubes," ESPN’s Clinton Yates, who spent nine years at the Post, said Monday on his radio show.
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Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez at the Dior fashion show as part of Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2026 held at the Musée Rodin on Jan. 26, 2025 in Paris, France. (Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images)
"Shutting down the sports section at the Washington Post is akin to removing a monument as far as I’m concerned," he continued. "And I think a lot of people would agree with me."
New York Times reporter Peter Baker believes international and sports coverage are "two of the strongest parts" of the Post.
"They have amazing must-read writers. If they are gutted by Bezos's publisher, it would be one of the most self-destructive acts in American journalism in years. Praying it's not true," Baker wrote on X.
But prayers might not be enough, as the Post's former media reporter, Paul Farhi, told Fox News Digital that he heard rumors from his former colleagues that "up to 300 people" could be laid off by the next round of cuts.
"I was just texting with a friend. She said it was genuinely heartbreaking," Kessler said. "Then I got [a] text from another former colleague, a star reporter. She said it was incredible that she could be laid off."
Glenn Kessler worked at The Washington Post from 1998 until 2025. (Washington Post)
Kessler left the Post last summer after 27 years at the paper, taking a voluntary buyout. His former boss, Washington Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis, called for staffers who don't "feel aligned" with the new direction of the paper to consider taking the buyout.
"There were many who wanted to stick with the Post and chose to stay. So they feel especially betrayed — though of course no one knows what’s really happening. Except it sounds bad," Kessler told Fox News Digital.
The Post has been plagued by low morale and financial struggles for years, and there has already been a significant exodus of staffers, many of whom have taken positions at rival publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic.
Bezos took heat from employees in 2024 when he abruptly axed the paper's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for the White House, after the editorial board had previously declared Trump the worst president in modern history.
The surprising decision shortly before the election sparked massive subscriber losses and a slew of staff resignations. Bezos later fueled more outrage when he announced he was overhauling its editorial pages to promote "free markets and personal liberties."
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Jeff Bezos, seen here during festivities surrounding his wedding to Lauren Sánchez, on June 27, 2025 in Venice, Italy. (Ernesto Ruscio/GC Images)
The Amazon founder is fueling outrage once again, with headlines such as "Jeff Bezos Is Putting The Washington Post Into Hospice" popping up across the internet. Bezos is the fourth-richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $250 billion, according to Forbes. Many in the media industry have long wondered why he wouldn’t reach into his pockets in order to save rank-and-file Post employees.
"Jeff Bezos’ destruction of a great newspaper will be part of his legacy. #SaveThePost," famed baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal posted Monday on X.
"You know what, let’s spend a little less on the boat foam wedding party and keep some f---ing reporters in Tehran," Jon Stewart quipped Monday night on "The Daily Show," referring to Bezos’ extravagant 2025 wedding that cost a reported $50 million.
Others have thought it presumptuous that Bezos should continue to shell out money for a company that's losing money.
The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Fox News Digital's David Rutz contributed to this report.
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