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Thursday, February 5, 2026 |
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TGIT. Here's the latest on NBC, Joe Rogan, Bloomberg, David Ellison, YouTube, Anthropic, "Wuthering Heights," and much more... |
Assessing the draconian layoffs at the Washington Post, former editor Marty Baron said it best: "They've called it a reset. It looks more like a retreat."
A retreat for what reason? What does owner Jeff Bezos want? That's what everyone is wondering, but Bezos is not answering.
But he does remain committed to owning the Post, executive editor Matt Murray told me in a phone interview.
Murray was made the public face of the layoffs yesterday, as Bezos remained silent and CEO Will Lewis remained MIA. When I asked if he considered resigning rather than implementing the layoffs that decimated his newsroom, Murray said, "I want to have the chance to see if we can get the Post to a better place. That's important because the Post is an important institution that should survive and should thrive."
Yes, but is there some new strategy? If so, Lewis has not articulated it. Post journalists have given up on him. But they have asserted that they were doing what they thought management wanted.
This "doesn't make sense from a business perspective," Brianna Sacks wrote on X after virtually all of her colleagues on the climate reporting team were canned. "
What they cut goes against their own strategy: teams that garnered high subscriptions; had loyal, diverse readers; did video; covered breaking news."
Beyond the predictable talk of "tough decisions" and business challenges, there's a gnawing sense that the Post might be in a "death spiral," as Baron said to Post alum Jeremy Barr, now at The Guardian.
Another alum, Paul Farhi, said "this is like watching your house burn down. Except you can always rebuild a house."
And yet — consider what NYT reporter Jonathan Weisman said: "I left the Washington Post in 2008 when it looked like it had entered a death spiral. It came back. For those who say The Post's days are done, it has been here before. Young journalists are still hungry. With new leadership, it can come back."
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Bezos has gone "from Washington Post savior to executioner," as TheWrap's Michael Calderone wrote. Some staffers are now wishing he would just sell the publication. "If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, then The Post deserves a steward that will," The Post Guild said in a statement.
Axios CEO Jim VandeHei called the situation baffling: "Why would a disinterested, disengaged, distracted Washington Post owner hire a seemingly disinterested, disengaged, distracted CEO, suffer perpetual criticism and $ loss? Lots of rich people would buy it, and even more execs would gladly run it... Just sell it."
Except: Bezos apparently still values the Post. And is insistent on making it a sustainable, successful business. For now, though, the man who figured out how to deliver practically everything to your front door overnight "has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet," as the NYT's team put it.
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Complicating the narrative |
Bezos nixed The Post's Kamala Harris endorsement, then showed up at Trump's inauguration. Amazon bought Melania Trump's movie. The Post blew up its Opinion section. Just this week, Bezos welcomed Pete Hegseth to Blue Origin's Florida rocket factory. But he chose not to speak out when Hannah Natanson's devices were seized by the FBI last month.
The man who "once sponsored an extraordinary pro-journalism Super Bowl ad, narrated by Tom Hanks," has turned into "to the courtier who grovels before Donald Trump and parades around at fashion shows with his new wife," James Fallows wrote yesterday.
And yet — if you suspect the Post's shrinkage is part of a strategy to curry favor with Trump to benefit Amazon and Blue Origin — look a little closer. It's worth noting that the Post did not decimate its political reporting team. The proverbial thorns in the side of the Trump administration are, for the most part, still there. The overhauled Opinion section still regularly criticizes Trump and his administration (though not as forcefully as before).
Perceptions of Bezos have no doubt hurt the Post and led to subscriber cancellations. But as Murray said yesterday, "our job should be reporting on Trump aggressively without fear or favor," and "we're continuing to do that." You know that, he said to me, "because we're breaking a lot of scoops."
True. If you missed John Woodrow Cox's story about DHS threatening free speech by "targeting Americans" with administrative subpoenas, here's a gift link. It's a must-read.
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The 'bloodbath' by the numbers |
The Post laid off roughly 300 of its approximately 800 journalists yesterday. The precise figures remain unclear because the Post is privately held by Bezos and isn't sharing exact #s, but the scale is staggering no matter how you slice it.
Farhi said it's likely the WaPo "bloodbath was the single-largest one-day layoff of journalists in American history." He added: "The Messenger's closure in 2024 (~300 or so staff) is probably closest. Either way, puts it in perspective."
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>> Glenn Kessler said Bezos "just ended the paper as we knew it." (MS NOW)
>> "There is another model for Bezos to consider: turning the Post into a nonprofit, endowed by Bezos but operating independently of him," Ruth Marcus wrote. (New Yorker)
>> An incredibly well-written piece by the CBC's Chris Jones: "Washington Post staff laid off while in Milan still hope to find beauty in the Olympics." (CBC)
>> Bryan Curtis eulogized the Post's Sports section, arguing it's been "dismantled before its leaders gave it a chance to change." (The Ringer)
>> "We lost something very, very big today, which doesn't mean we can't get it back," the Post's legendary former sports editor George Solomon said. (SBJ)
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Guthrie family pleads for proof of life |
Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images |
The "Today" show opened this morning by saying, "We are wrapping our arms even tighter around Savannah and her family."
There has been a palpable shift in the past couple of days as federal resources play a greater role in the search for Nancy Guthrie, underlined by a social media post from Trump (who no doubt has been watching all the TV coverage) directing "ALL Federal Law Enforcement" to help.
Savannah and her siblings spent yesterday afternoon with federal agents before taping the video you've now seen, pleading for proof of life. It was both excruciating and necessary to tape, to watch, to televise.
The ransom note to news outlets, if legitimate, was a "one-way conversation," and through the video, the Guthries are trying to "turn it into a two-way conversation," John Miller said on "The Source with Kaitlan Collins."
>> There is a press briefing scheduled for 1 p.m. ET today. You can find CNN's latest updates here.
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NBC's revised Olympics plans |
Mary Carillo will fill in for Savannah Guthrie as co-host of the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony telecast tomorrow, NBC said yesterday.
Guthrie's "Today" co-host Craig Melvin "will also remain stateside," the network said. Melvin was going to anchor several editions of "Olympic Late Night" from Milan on top of his "Today" duties. This will be "the first Olympics in recent memory that does not have a significant presence of anchors" from "Today," Variety's Brian Steinberg noted.
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Trump downplays Rogan's criticism... |
In his sit-down with NBC's Tom Llamas yesterday, Trump "gently brushed aside criticism from podcaster Joe Rogan," who "recently compared the tactics of ICE agents to those of the Nazi Gestapo," per NBC's recap here.
Trump — who's, umm, not normally one to "gently" brush aside "criticism" — called Rogan "great" and revealed that they had a "great conversation" three days earlier. "I think he's a great guy, and I think he likes me, too. And, you know, liking me isn't important." (Do you know that?)
Then Trump pivoted to one of his now-familiar complaints: "I don't think we’re good at public relations..."
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...and says he'll stay out of Netflix vs. Paramount |
There are many reasons to be skeptical of his answer, but when Llamas brought up Netflix-Warner and asked Trump if he is going to "get involved in that deal," Trump answered, "I haven't been involved. I must say, I guess I'm considered to be a very strong president. I've been called by both sides. It's the two sides. But I've decided I shouldn't be involved."
>> "In December, he was going to be very involved. In February, he's not involved at all," Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw wrote. "How long until he's involved again?"
>> Deadline's Ted Johnson observed that "the strategy among MAGA Republicans seems to have been to draw Trump into attacking Netflix as too woke and somehow stopping the merger. But he told NBC News today he'll stay out of it."
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In an open letter pushing his WBD hostile takeover bid today, Paramount boss David Ellison "outlined specific commitments for the creative community, pledging that the combined entity would produce at least 30 theatrical features annually while maintaining a competitive marketplace structure," Naman Ramachandran and Elsa Keslassy report for Variety.
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When life gives you Lemons... |
"The most immediate result of the DOJ charging Don Lemon is he now has 100k more followers on YouTube," Semafor's Max Tani observed yesterday. Relatedly, he said, Lemon has "improved his guest bookings — in the last day, he's dropped interviews with AOC and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock."
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FCC chair threatening with 'equal time' |
Liam Reilly writes: Brendan Carr isn't backing down from his new threats against late-night comics. In an interview with Fox News this week, the FCC chairman claimed his recent warning — which invoked the "equal-time" rule for broadcasters — isn't a policy change at all, but a strict return to existing law. Carr claimed that broadcasters have stretched the exceptions for comedy and entertainment programming so far that it has now "come to swallow the rule." LateNighter’s Jed Rosenzweig has more on that interview here...
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>> CBS News continues to stay silent about the status of contributor Peter Attia. Check out Leah Asmelash's latest: "Celebrity doctor Peter Attia's friendly, raunchy Epstein emails rattle his fans." (CNN)
>> Bloomberg Media "grew revenue, subscriptions, and advertising last year, capping a year of steady gains as its paying subscriber base surpassed 700,000 and its advertising business rebounded across global markets," Mark Stenberg writes. (Adweek)
>> Yesterday, Bloomberg announced a new "Stream" tab and other app upgrades alongside a partial paywall for "select Bloomberg video content." (Bloomberg)
>> This morning Thomson Reuters reported higher Q4 revenue, including gains at the news divisions, partly from "content licensing revenue deals." (Reuters)
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YouTube made $60 billion last year |
"YouTube generated more than $60 billion in revenue for 2025, including both advertising and subscriptions, the first time parent company Alphabet has broken out total revenue for the platform," Variety's Todd Spangler writes. "That makes YouTube much larger than subscription-streaming leader Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion in revenue for full-year 2025."
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Hadas Gold writes: The AI battles are coming to your Super Bowl ads. Anthropic will take a swipe at competitor OpenAI in ads set to run before and during this Sunday's big game.
Yesterday, Anthropic announced that its chatbot, Claude, will remain ad-free, a few weeks after OpenAI said the free version of ChatGPT would show contextual ads based on users' conversations.
The company debuted several humorous spots, including one set to air Sunday night, in which a man seeks advice from an older woman on how to communicate better with his mom. In the robotic tone and cadence of a chatbot, the woman offers useful guidance before pivoting to an ad for a "mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars." The tagline: "Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude." OpenAI's CMO responded with a lengthy post on X criticizing Anthropic's business model...
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Today's entertainment headlines |
>> Amazon "plans to use artificial intelligence to speed up the process for making movies and TV shows even as Hollywood fears that AI will cut jobs and permanently reshape the industry." (Reuters)
>> "The wild power struggle over the Wu-Tang Clan's secretive, single-copy album 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' kicked into high gear again this week, with disgraced pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli filing a counter lawsuit against RZA." (Rolling Stone)
>> The first reactions to Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" are... lusty. (Variety)
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