It had all the trappings of a turning point for 'The Washington Post,' with dozens of executives, editors, and reporters summoned to Jeff Bezos’s local manse for an unhurried, candid, even conciliatory discussion about what’s gone wrong with the paper since the centibillionaire bought it in 2013. But what attendees say they didn’t discuss is how to save it.

Just when the slow-motion Telegraph sale finally seemed ready to close, Mathias Döpfner entered the chat. Does Axel Springer’s dark horse bid have any real chance? And why does anyone want the headache of owning a newspaper in 2026 anyway?

The final days of The Washington Post’s publisher and C.E.O. were more cowardly and craven than even the newsroom imagined—with elevator closures and a stealth flight from town. Now that he’s gone, the staff is thoroughly demoralized… and wondering how Jeff Bezos will avoid making the same mistake again.

While its executive editor, Matt Murray, was overseeing the fallout of the devastating layoffs on K Street, The Washington Post’s absentee leader and C.E.O., Will Lewis, was pregaming with friends at the Super Bowl. Yes, the optics are terrible, but is an aloof and often remote C.E.O. the right guy to save the Post?

When Bezos bought the ‘Post’ in 2013, he said, “You can’t shrink your way to relevance.” Today, however, his newspaper is attempting to do just that and then some—shuttering entire sections, laying off 300 reporters, and pulling back on crucial reporting. Is a comeback possible, or has K Street officially entered its late Ottoman era?

The Washington Post cuts, which could affect as many as 300 employees, according to sources, are the culmination of a two-year effort by C.E.O. Will Lewis to fundamentally transform the paper and reverse hundreds of millions in annual losses. In that effort, Lewis has decided to focus the Post’s editorial investment on a few core coverage areas—national security, politics, etcetera—and not sports.

What’s changed at The Washington Post amid this endless and ostensible period of transformation and renewal? Almost nothing, which is either part of a master plan to turn the Post into the Amazon Marketplace of news, or just more inertia and mismanagement at America’s allegedly third-most-important newspaper.