Goodbye Washington Post, Hello State Propaganda
Neoliberalism has done what capitalist ideologues feared for decades
On February 4, 2026, democracy died bathed in the sunlight of the day. The Washington Post, owned by ex-Amazon CEO and billionaire Jeff Bezos, laid off approximately one third of its staff. Hundreds of people across the entire enterprise have been found without a job. One employee called it "an absolute bloodbath." The paper's sports desk, books desk and daily news podcast Post Reports have all been taken out back and shot. Prominent journalists like Caroline O'Donovan, who primarily covered Amazon, race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton and sports journalist Neil Greenberg have been canned. The Washington Post Guild said that over the past three years, 400 people have lost their jobs.
Bezos is one of the richest men in the world, with a net worth of approximately $252 billion. Former Executive Editor Marty Baron called the newest layoffs "among the darkest days in history" for the publication. As NPR News reported, the paper had done amazingly, both in subscriptions and reporting, under the first Trump administration. So this was not inevitable. Nor was it a result of incompetence. Bezos knows how to make money; He's just made that money off of the back of human misery.
What liberal pundits and politicians have fear mongered for years has come to pass: the "free press" is dead. It wasn't socialism, communism, totalitarianism or authoritarianism that killed it. None of the familiar bogeymen have fingerprints on the murder weapon. No, the culprit is neoliberal capitalism, investors, ideologues and opportunists.
The Washington Post is hardly alone in its routine layoffs. Canadian publications regularly cut the livelihoods of whomever they choose... whenever profits are below what they were hoping for. Corus Entertainment, parent company of Global News, laid off 46 people in Alberta and B.C. last September. In November, the company reached a deal with lenders to restructure $1.1 billion in debt the company held. They're up the creek, as one would say.
Meanwhile, the only growing media giant is Postmedia Network Inc., which bought Saltwire and the Halifax Herald in 2024. Postmedia is the largest owner of Canadian news outlets in the country. It, in turn, is owned by Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey-based hedge fund. That hedge fun is owned by Anthony Melchiorre, a wealth Republican donor. Functionally, this means that most of news outlets in Canada are owned and run by a right-wing propaganda network.
Our government funds these, as well. The Labour Tax Credit provides news outlets "up to a maximum of $85,000 per eligible newsroom employee per year." In 2021, Postmedia received $35 million in federal funding, touting it as a "key pillar" of its business strategy, despite its publications saying that government subsidies were for "welfare slackers."
As we can clearly see, Canadian media is in a similar shape to news in the US. Our institutions don't need to be directly owned by a billionaire to be wrung for profit. Local news is still in free fall, despite efforts from the CBC. Quality of local news also needs to be at a high standard that it currently lacks. Solutions to this news ecosystem problem are not seriously considered by any government.
Scott Martin
I've written on the impact of the internet on Canadian news outlets before, especially in the context of the Online News Act. But patchwork solutions, such as supplying $150 million in funding to the CBC, while still being asked to cut 15 per cent of its budget like other federal agencies, are not going to work. There is no quick-fix solution. These problems are generated by the function of legacy news media in our current socioeconomic moment. Politicians in the US are actively undermining and coercing journalists at every turn, but those who are acquiescing to them are the real problem.
Why do they do this? Put simply: profit. Billionaires who own newspapers could make them profitable, but what would that bring them? Further targeting by the government and spreading a critical eye on the system; which would expose abuses and corruption that would undermine people's view of business and government. These are not benefits when you are trying to make as much profit as possible: they are negative outcomes. Remember, one of the journalists laid off covered Amazon almost exclusively.
Consider Postmedia. It continues to be a juggernaut because it pushes the discourse in Canada further to the right. That's its real value. With a further right government in provinces and the country, tax laws are loosened, populations are distracted and profits increase. Not only does the Canadian government help to fund this project, it ultimately benefits as well. Canada is a capitalist country, and therefore shares the same goals as private capitalist entities. Prime Minister Mark Carney has shifted to the right in his tenure, cutting taxes, supercharging resource extraction and tightening immigration. Though this is a departure from Trudeau's feel-good rhetoric, this country has always prioritized capital development above all else. What differed were the tactics it used to preserve that development.
Our news media is in a death spiral everywhere it counts. Critical reporting, investigations, local coverage and information gathering all require large amounts of capital. In the days when a bombshell investigation would sell countless newspapers, bring in larger payments from advertisers and up the number of classifieds, this was acceptable. The image of the intrepid reporter was, like many things, a myth made to sell something. Nowadays, with the advent of the internet and the rise of far-right governments, the profit incentive simply isn't there. The only incentive left is the use of these organs to push discourse to the right; To benefit their wealthy owners and/or investors.
In effect, neoliberalism, billionaires and market pressures have done what our governments claimed only happened in rival countries. As I and others have argued many times, our press was never truly free. But something has changed. What's left of our news institutions have become hollow shells of their former selves. Failing that, they've become open mouthpieces for far-right governments in waiting or in power. That latter possibility is now their main benefit. Put simply: state propaganda without direct and overt state intervention.
In the meantime, dedicated reporters have their livelihoods stolen to further that project. To the owners, ideologues and investors, it's a win-win.
