In the wake of Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post slashing nearly a third of the newsroom, Jon Stewart shared his thoughts on the billionaire’s “disappointing” actions as a leader.
Stewart revealed his stance on an episode of his Weekly Show podcast during a segment in which viewers can ask him questions. The host was asked to explain what “Jeff Bezos is doing with The Washington Post.”
In response, Stewart quickly said it’s “pretty clear” that the billionaire owner of Amazon is “hollowing out” the newspaper. The sweeping layoffs affected several sections of the Post, including local news and foreign reporting. Journalists at the sports desk, the Middle East desk, and the book review vertical were entirely laid off. A total of nearly 800 employees were let go.
Stewart criticized Bezos for spending “billions and billions” to send Katy Perry into space while simultaneously showing no regard for the public with his actions at the Post.
“I think the hope was, in the grand tradition of billionaires wasting money on newspapers, that he would have viewed it as a responsibility to the public more than something to arbitrage and like sell off for parts, that he would say like, ‘well, s--t, if I can spend billions and billions on sending Katy Perry somewhat close to the troposphere, like maybe I can keep this thing going in a robust way,’” Stewart said.
“I think that my disappointment is: what the f--- else are you doing with the money that you have other than like, what better use could there be?” he continued.
Stewart added a brutal dig at Bezos, saying, “Just because you came up with a good way to get books to people faster, doesn’t mean you care or know the first thing of running, you know, a quality newspaper.”
He also joked, “Maybe he has like a weird relationship with the newspaper that like, if it gets stronger, his body gets frailer.”
Bezos purchased the Post in 2013 for $250 million. The cuts at the legendary paper were reportedly ordered by Bezos himself, according to NPR. A new report by The Verge also found that Bezos and the paper’s now-outsted CEO, Will Lewis, had an opportunity to save several jobs but chose not to.
The layoffs earlier this month were widely slammed by the media, with the New York Times writing that the newspaper’s gutting is “a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet.”
Don Graham, the former owner of the Washington Post, also condemned the decision, saying, “I am sad that so many excellent reporters and editors—and old friends—are losing their jobs."
