Jeff Bezos is ordering his newspaper’s editors to publish views that advocate liberty and free markets in the opinion section. In response, The Washington Post’s opinion editor decided he’d rather resign. Also, MSNBC just fired its most race-obsessed host, Joy Reid, triggering an on-air scolding from the only talking head there who may have a legitimate audience. All this comes a month after CNN announced it was laying off hundreds of employees (the fact that CNN is still standing is quite impressive).
It appears legacy media outlets can no longer afford to bleed piles of cash and lose viewers. Considering recent revelations by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that millions of dollars in government payments have been funneled to mainstream outlets — including The New York Times, Reuters, Politico, The Associated Press, and others — just over the last decade, it’s not unreasonable to conclude mainstream media have been artificially propped up.
The most significant event to signal the death of mainstream media was the 2025 U.S. presidential election. Legacy media launched an unsuccessful all-hands-on-deck propaganda attack on the Big Bad Orange Man, complete with accusations from a retired four-star general that Trump was a fascist and a gaslighting campaign intended to convince Americans that Kamala Harris was not the ridiculous candidate she was.
David Shipley, the Post’s opinion editor who is now leaving, reportedly tried to work out a deal with Bezos that wouldn’t result in a “narrowing” of the newspaper’s opinions. According to The New York Times:
Mr. Shipley expressed reservations about Mr. Bezos’ new approach for a variety of reasons [said “two people with knowledge of the discussions” between Bezos, Shipley, and Post CEO Will Lewis]. Among his misgivings: The Post’s ecumenical approach to commentary made the coverage unique and valuable, and putting out a daily section with quality writing on a narrower set of views could be challenging.
In the weeks leading up to his exit, Mr. Shipley suggested compromises to incorporate Mr. Bezos’ approach but also ensure that The Post’s opinion section could still publish a variety of viewpoints. In the end, Mr. Shipley told the owner of the newspaper that he didn’t think Mr. Bezos’ decision was the right one for The Post, or for him, according to the two people.
Whatever the details of the conversation between Bezos and Shipley are, it’s clear the former is trying to chart a more rightward course for the Post. And considering the far-left waters in which contributors have been wading for decades, there is little danger the Post’s opinion section will turn into a more sophisticated version of Breitbart. As for its news coverage, reports say Bezos’ order doesn’t affect it.
The recent order from Bezos was accompanied by a declaration of patriotism to Post staff. The owner announced:
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical; it drives creativity, invention and prosperity.
An obvious question is: Where has this conviction been over the last decade, Mr. Bezos? The Amazon founder bought the newspaper in 2013, yet only recently began leveraging his weight. In October, he ended the paper’s tradition of endorsing presidential candidates, triggering multiple resignations among Post opinion staff members. The likely answer is Bezos, who didn’t build his massive wealth by being a sucker, is responding to changes brought on by the MAGA revolution.
Shortly before Donald Trump moved back into the White House, then-president of MSNBC Rashida Jones resigned. Jones, we are constantly reminded, “was the first Black woman to lead a major cable-news network.” It turns out politically preferred skin color did not compensate for the fact that she failed at her actual job. Rebecca Kutler, a former CNN executive, replaced Jones.
On Sunday, Joy Reid’s show, The ReidOut, was canceled as part of a network overhaul led by Kutler, according to The Cut.
After the news broke, Reid appeared on the cringy Win With Black Women podcast, where she reiterated some of the same views that rendered her unemployed.
Reid’s firing triggered Rachel Maddow, who’s back to doing her show five days a week for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. On air, Maddow slapped the hands that feed her, even suggesting racism as a motivator. She said:
In all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid. … I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. … It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we have two — count ’em — two nonwhite hosts in prime time [the other being Asian-descent Alex Wagner], both of our nonwhite hosts in prime time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend.
The Times reports that MSNBC is planning to replace Reid’s program with a show led by a trio of non-white anchors, so fret not, Ms. Maddow. One of those is Symone Sanders Townsend, a political commentator and former Democratic strategist who, interestingly, is also a bald, black woman. Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who happens to be black, will also co-anchor. He is an obvious attempt by MSNBC at ideological balance. And the third anchor will be Alicia Menendez, a Cuban-descent TV journalist who happens to be the daughter of former New Jersey senator and current prison inmate Robert Menendez. The one-time senator is now known as “Gold Bar Bob” after being convicted of bribery, extortion, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice for taking bribes from foreign countries in the form of gold bars.
In related news, MSNBC has also told the majority of the employees who produce Maddow’s and Reid’s shows they are being let go as part of the network’s programming overhaul. The Guardian reported, “It all comes at a turbulent time for the cable news industry in general. MSNBC is being spun off by NBCUniversal and is trying to find cost savings, similar to how CNN laid off 200 employees last month as its new chief executive, Mark Thompson, attempts to pivot to a digital strategy.”
Meanwhile, over at the White House, where the man some blame for this upheaval resides, the Trump administration has taken control of which journalists get to travel with the president. The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) no longer has that privilege. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday:
For decades, a group of D.C.-based journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association, has … dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the presidents of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore.
I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows, and who listen to your radio stations.
Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team.
The WHCA, predictably, was unhappy with this development. It issued a statement:
Since its founding in 1914, the WHCA has sought to ensure that the reporters, photographers, producers and technicians who actually do the work — 365 days of every year — decide amongst themselves how these rotations are operated, so as to ensure consistent professional standards and fairness in access on behalf of all readers, viewers and listeners.
The obvious error in this statement is that WHCA journalists haven’t abided by professional standards and fairness. That’s why this is happening. They’ve operated largely as propagandists for the Establishment. And the target of their most vicious attacks has been the only person in modern history who has figured out how to break them.
But is the White House overcorrecting? Could this set a dangerous precedent that results in future administrations essentially giving any access only to media who write fawning pieces?
There is little chance of Trump’s team cutting off media access to everyone. Trump’s day is essentially a never-ending press conference. He talks to the press while signing executive orders, he talks to them at drawn-out cabinet meetings, he stops to ramble right as he gets off Air Force One, and he won’t even be quiet when he’s at his palace at Mar-a-Lago. And if there’s no media to ask him about something, he’ll rattle off a few Truth Social posts.
A decade ago, Donald Trump descended the golden escalator and took the reins as the point man for what will go down in history as one of the most consequential political movements in U.S. history. Whatever you make of his unrefined style, his scattered policies, his strongman penchant for control and unilateral action, Trump and the source of his power, MAGA, have changed not only American politics, but global politics. Moreover, it also looks like MAGA has done something no other movement in modern U.S. history was capable of. MAGA has destroyed the long-standing stranglehold the Establishment has had on the media.
So what now?
Alternative media is ascending, legacy media is crumbling. That much is obvious. But where does this lead?
In a best-case scenario, America is entering a golden age of news distribution. Journalism programs will begin churning out the next generation of objective reporters who will be held to those standards by the readers they depend on for their jobs. This new landscape obviously also includes opinionated magazines, podcasters, and social media influencers, adding quite a bit of spice to the information landscape.
A more realistic likelihood is that the public is going to have to become savvier at filtering a media firehouse comprised of left-wing news outlets, right-wing news outlets, parody outlets, influencers, and the never-ending and growing crop of podcasters.
But whatever the future of media holds, it’ll be different from the way it has been.