{"id":462614,"date":"2026-02-11T17:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462614\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:58:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:58:24","slug":"bezos-could-have-saved-the-washington-posts-local-news-and-sports-reporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462614\/","title":{"rendered":"Bezos could have saved The Washington Post\u2019s local news and sports reporters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about tech politicking in the age of Trump. If you\u2019re a subscriber, you are dominant and talented, like the Seattle Seahawks. If you\u2019re not a subscriber yet, it\u2019s time to get your act together<\/a>, like the New England Patriots. (I\u2019m from Boston and I\u2019m allowed to say this.) <\/p>\n

The biggest tech story dominating Washington right now is, incidentally, a media story. Last week, shortly after The Washington Post laid off 400 staffers and closed many of its desks, and before its absentee CEO Will Lewis got summarily shoved out, I wrote a column trying to figure out whether there was even a cynical, self-interested reason that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos continued to own the Post: Was it to support journalism, make money, or suck up to Donald Trump?<\/p>\n

This weekend I learned of a discussion that would have both saved the Post money and supported several journalists, but never went through: After it was reported in late January that the Post was eyeing the elimination of the sports desk<\/a>, the Washington City Paper, a renowned newspaper with deep roots in DC, had offered to purchase both the Post\u2019s sports and local sections, thereby keeping those journalists employed.<\/p>\n

Sources close to the discussion said Mark Ein, the owner of the City Paper and a part owner of the Washington Commanders, had approached then-CEO Lewis weeks ago with a proposal: They could instead spin sports and local into a separate entity that the City Paper would then invest in and host on its platform. (News organizations selling off sections and IPs is not an unheard-of phenomenon.)<\/p>\n

Though Lewis was reportedly receptive, the discussions abruptly ended last Wednesday, when the Post closed those sections altogether and laid off the journalists who staffed them. In the case of the sports\u2019 journalists, they were right in the middle of the Winter Olympics and about to cover the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

That decision hit particularly hard for longtime Washington Post readers: A generation of sports journalists had grown up on the Post\u2019s coverage of local teams<\/a>, and it was two local beat reporters that ended up breaking the Watergate scandal.<\/p>\n

In response to an X post<\/a> imploring him to hire the newly available Posties \u201cto give this region the coverage it deserves,\u201d Ein said that he was \u201con it.\u201d The Washington Post did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, I hit up some more insiders from the worlds of journalism, tech, and the Trump gossip chains, all of whom had worked with Bezos and the Post, looking for answers. It turns out that they were just as confused as I was, and two of them allowed me to print their thoughts.<\/p>\n

An executive who\u2019s worked in journalism and philanthropy and worked with Bezos:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I used to describe billionaires who own media properties is that they don\u2019t want to write more checks, meaning they think the subsidy they\u2019re providing is that they\u2019re not asked for the paper to send them a check every year. All their other businesses give them dividends, right? But this one, they\u2019re like, Fine. Just don\u2019t lose money, and just don\u2019t bug me anymore. They\u2019re trying to rationalize the business by making it lose less money.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, him trying to make it lose less, that kind of makes sense. It\u2019s just curious as to why he\u2019s doing it at all. And what does it get out of it? Does he love the business? He\u2019s never made a pronouncement so much as loving it. I think there\u2019s part of the equation that isn\u2019t solvable, at some level. And then that\u2019s what people are filling in with, He wants influence with Trump or somehow wants us to have his other businesses. I\u2019ve never heard him say anything like that. I\u2019ve never heard anybody from The Washington Post assert anything like that. I\u2019ve never seen evidence of it. But it\u2019s sort of what you fill in the blank with, when the equation isn\u2019t adding up. What I think is true is, it is irrational for him to own this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kara Swisher, the tech journalist and host of Pivot, who put together a very public bid last year to purchase the Post but never heard back from Bezos. (Disclosure: Swisher\u2019s podcast Pivot is produced by Vox Media.) Here\u2019s her response in full:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea except in some non botoxed part of his once sharp brain he thinks he is doing what it will take to preserve the Post for the long term. But I suspect, given how feral he has always been from the start, he wants to show fealty to Trump and at the same time smother it slowly to preserve his options to have a possible cudgel at the ready if need be.<\/p>\n

This much is true: Bezos has always been about optionality and will do whatever it takes to further his interests. It would be so much better if he sold it and bought Vogue, but since he is 10 times wealthier than when he acquired the Post in 2013, why not have it all? Or maybe, just maybe, he\u2019s just a jerk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmmm. An underappreciated fact about the layoffs, reported out first by Sara Fischer at Axios: Out of the 400 people laid off, 75 of them came from Arc XP<\/a>, the Post\u2019s tech publishing arm that was also funded by Bezos.<\/p>\n

Nexstar vs. Newsmax heats up<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new type of growing backlash to Trump on the right, and it\u2019s led by the cable network that had once been deeply loyal to him.<\/p>\n

Today, Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the right-wing cable network Newsmax and a major Trump ally, testified in the Senate in opposition of the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger, alongside several journalism nonprofits supporting local news. The deal would have required that the Federal Communications Commission, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, lift a regulatory cap that limited companies to only owning 39 percent of the television market. Should the deal go through the Senate, the Nexstar-Tegna entity would own 54 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane what they\u2019re [Nexstar-Tegna] claiming,\u201d Ruddy told me on the phone after the hearing. \u201cFirst of all, they\u2019re claiming that they\u2019re increasing competition by consolidating a massive merger. And then they claim that they\u2019re protecting local news. Local news is going to be decimated, and Nexstar has a history of firing journalists and consolidating newsrooms wherever they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his opening testimony<\/a>, Ruddy argued that the merger would create even more corporate media consolidation and prevent independent, local, non-corporate companies from being able to enter the market. \u201cWith the collapse of local newspapers and the gutting of local radio due to prior consolidation, television now stands largely alone as the primary source of local news,\u201d he stated, pointing out that even local news stories that go viral on tech platforms originate from local TV news. \u201cWhen you raise the national ownership cap, you are e\ufb00ectively saying that two or<\/p>\n

three corporations should eventually own most or all television stations in America \u2014 and by extension, control local news. That is what consolidation truly means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsmax itself has some battle scars from similar deals: Although it\u2019s the seventh-most-watched cable channel in the country according to Nielsen ratings, it\u2019s also a frequent target of national media companies repeatedly undermining its ability to air across the country. As an example, Ruddy explicitly called out Nexstar for creating a knockoff and selling it for cheap:<\/p>\n

\u201cNexstar also insists that cable operators carry its little-watched cable news channel, NewsNation. Last year, Newsmax delivered at least five times the ratings of NewsNation, yet cable operators were forced not only to carry NewsNation, but to pay license fees significantly higher than those paid to Newsmax. We hear a great deal about the free market. But this is not the free market. This is<\/p>\n

market leverage and manipulation used to harm consumers and suppress competition \u2014 specifically competition from independent voices like Newsmax.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nexstar-Tegna plot twist:<\/p>\n

In November 2025, Trump, whom Ruddy has donated to since 2016, vehemently blasted the deal on Truth Social, saying that it would \u201callow the Radical Left Networks to \u2018enlarge,\u2019\u201d and therefore give mainstream media a tighter grip on the country: \u201cNO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS. If anything, make them SMALLER!\u201d But fast forward to last Saturday, and Trump suddenly changed his mind, writing on Truth Social<\/a> that the merger would actually \u201chelp knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what changed? There\u2019s a specific genre of \u201csucking up to Trump\u201d that goes back to his first administration, when Trump was frequently mainlining cable news: Special interest groups would buy ads in specific television markets and run them on Fox News in the hopes that Trump was watching. And over the past few months \u2014 especially during college and pro football playoff games \u2014 I\u2019ve been catching two very specific ads<\/a> paid for by a group called Keep News Local, which appears to be directly asking Trump to support the Nexstar-Tegna merger. Their argument has a very Trumpian gloss: Over footage of the president, a voice-over claims that the merger would support \u201cindependent voices,\u201d would \u201cdefeat the fake news media,\u201d and was \u201ccrucial for MAGA to survive.\u201d (The cherry on top: \u201cPresident Trump defeated the fake news monopolies before through independent voices and local news.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

Screenshot via Keep News Local\/iSpot.tv.<\/p>\n

Punchbowl reported last week<\/a> that Keep News Local, which also ran a campaign on X, is a right-wing coalition that\u2019s in favor of the merger, and includes Building America\u2019s Future, a group backed by Elon Musk. I\u2019ll weigh in by saying that this may be the least subtle influence campaign ad I\u2019ve ever seen on Washington television. But subtlety hasn\u2019t been part of Nexstar\u2019s Trump strategy writ large; there was, after all, the time last September when they attempted to get Jimmy Kimmel Live! canceled<\/a>, prompted by Carr attacking the late-night host after he made a joke related to the political fallout from Charlie Kirk\u2019s death. Conversely, a counter-group called Keep It Local Media began pumping out its own ads against the deal.<\/p>\n

Ruddy told me that while he was not affiliated with any of the political groups supporting or opposing the merger, he knew that the pro-merger groups were putting \u201ca lot of money\u201d into the campaign. That said, he couldn\u2019t say whether they\u2019d have the desired effect: \u201cI think at the end of the day, Trump makes his own mind. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s going to be influenced by an ad campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

What tech moguls have we recently seen in the Epstein files?<\/p>\n

\u201cJeffrey Epstein arranged a meeting with Tim Cook for the former head of Windows<\/a>\u201d: Emails from the Epstein files appear to show how Steven Sinofsky relied on Epstein for a connection to Apple\u2019s CEO.\u201cBill Gates says accusations contained in Epstein files are \u2018absolutely absurd\u2019<\/a>\u201d: Emails claim Gates\u2019 contracted an STD and wanted to \u2018surreptitiously\u2019 give Melinda antibiotics.\u201cFormer Windows 8 boss recruited Epstein to help negotiate his messy Microsoft exit<\/a>\u201d The so-called Epstein files appear to show how Steven Sinofsky negotiated a $14 million payout from Microsoft.\u201cWill Elon Musk\u2019s emails with Jeffrey Epstein derail his very important year?<\/a>\u201d The revelations that Musk sought an invite to Epstein\u2019s island add risk to his plans to merge SpaceX with xAI, and then take the combined company public, experts say.\u201cGoogle co-founder Sergey Brin visited Epstein\u2019s private island and traded emails with Ghislaine Maxwell\u201d.<\/a>\u201cJeffrey Epstein was permanently banned from Xbox Live<\/a>\u201d: Because he was a registered sex offender.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump Phone is real (ish)\u201d<\/p>\n

After several weeks of asking whether the Trump Phone (remember that?) was actually real<\/a>, our very own Dominic Preston, who has reviewed many a smartphone in his time, managed to get Trump Mobile executives to at least show him the phone over Zoom<\/a>. It will not, however, be \u201cmade in the USA\u201d as promised \u2014 instead, the phones will go through \u201cfinal assembly\u201d in Miami.<\/p>\n

Super Bowl vs. Turning Point USA<\/p>\n

TPUSA claims that its Super Bowl halftime show starring Kid Rock \u2014 MAGA counterprogramming to the NFL\u2019s official Bad Bunny halftime show \u2014 drew 6.1 million concurrent viewers on YouTube TV.<\/p>\n

Streaming numbers are still a fudgy art, but one thing\u2019s for sure: That number would have been higher if they\u2019d been able to livestream the show on Musk\u2019s X. Alas, TPUSA had to cancel the X livestream at the last minute, and an insider told The Verge it was due to copyright and music licensing issues. Supposedly, one song was not cleared to be broadcast on the \u201ceverything app\u201d due to an old clause grandfathered in from the days when it was Twitter.<\/p>\n

And finally, Super Bowl ad Recess.<\/p>\n

My colleagues Charles Pulliam-Moore and Jess Weatherbed waded through the slop of Super Bowl generative AI ads<\/a>, of which, apparently, there were too many. I would like to add my thoughts to the canon:<\/p>\n

The shadiest ad award: Claude mocking ChatGPT\u2019s pullup ad<\/a> (and Sam Altman getting salty over it)The \u201cplease don\u2019t bring this up to me, a Bostonian\u201d award: The Dunkin\u2019 Donuts CGI de-aging adThe real winners: Backstreet Boys for licensing not one, but two songs for Super Bowl commercialsExcellence in \u201cdefending your widely panned Super Bowl ad<\/a>\u201d: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Image via @brian_armstrong\/X.<\/p>\n

See you next week, and send all tips to every way that we list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Tina NguyenClose\"Tina<\/p>\n

Tina Nguyen<\/p>\n

Senior Reporter, Washington<\/p>\n

Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All by Tina Nguyen<\/a><\/p>\n

ColumnClose<\/p>\n

Column<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Column<\/a><\/p>\n

PolicyClose<\/p>\n

Policy<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Policy<\/a><\/p>\n

PoliticsClose<\/p>\n

Politics<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Politics<\/a><\/p>\n

RegulatorClose<\/p>\n

Regulator<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Regulator<\/a><\/p>\n

Social MediaClose<\/p>\n

Social Media<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Social Media<\/a><\/p>\n

TechClose<\/p>\n

Tech<\/p>\n

Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n

FollowFollow<\/p>\n

See All Tech<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about tech politicking in the age of Trump.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,38965,1343,111,54758,108,172],"class_list":["post-462614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-column","tag-policy","tag-politics","tag-regulator","tag-social-media","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}