Margaret Sullivan

Why is the Washington Post cratering so spectacularly? | Margaret Sullivan To understand the change in Washington Post’s fortunes, it is worth comparing its demise to the New York Times’s trajectory

And here's @sulliview.bsky.social on how the NYT and WP pursued very different paths, and personnel, with alternately fantastic or disastrous results. (She worked at both places.)

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why is the Washington Post cratering so spectacularly? | Margaret Sullivan To understand the change in Washington Post’s fortunes, it is worth comparing its demise to the New York Times’s trajectory

Why is the Washington Post cratering so spectacularly? To understand the change in the Post’s fortunes, it is worth comparing its demise to the New York Times’s upward trajectory, by @sulliview.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... via @us.theguardian.com #journalism

Spoiler alert: When top officials have to start saying in an agency’s defense “no, no, no, that’s a totally legitimate law enforcement agency,” they have already lost and it is, in fact, no longer a legitimate law enforcement agency.

An insider's view of the demise of WaPo. Thanks @sulliview.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

photo of Pam Bondi testifying in the foreground as a group of 7 women and 1 men raise their hands

Likely-historic photo by NBC News of all the Epstein victims asked to raise their hands if they've not yet been asked to meet with the DOJ as Bondi testifies in foreground

Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times Much more blunt truth-telling, please

'More of this fearless straight talk, please.'

Via @sulliview.bsky.social
margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/yes-this-i...

Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times Much more blunt truth-telling, please

🎉 @sulliview.bsky.social caught NYT doing it right & it wasn’t in Cooking

Front page, top right corner, 2-column headline
No pussyfooting. No soft-pedaling. No ‘some critics say’ hinting. No ‘racially tinged.’
NYT called out racism clearly
margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/yes-this-i...

Not “racially tinged” but straight-up racist. My new column on American Crisis

Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times Much more blunt truth-telling, please

From @sulliview.bsky.social:

“Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times
Much more blunt truth-telling, please”

margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/yes-this-i...

Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times Much more blunt truth-telling, please

“More of this fearless straight talk, please.”

@sulliview.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/margaret...

Yes! THIS is how it's done, New York Times Much more blunt truth-telling, please

"There was no pussyfooting. There was no soft-pedaling. ...There was nothing about 'racially tinged.' Racism was called out clearly." @sulliview.bsky.social

Australian media to note:
when reporting on One Nation, you can use the "R" word. #auspol
margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/yes-this-i...

Should You Buy a Newspaper or a Yacht? Advice for Jeff Bezos

"Think carefully before you buy," @petridishes.bsky.social advises Jeff Bezos circa 2013. "Do you really want to own a newspaper? Do you really have what it takes? Or do you just want to own another yacht?"

RIP The Washington Post Margaret Sullivan reveals how Jeff Bezos sold out to Trump.

Margaret Sullivan (@sulliview.bsky.social), Washington Post media columnist from 2016-22, tells @jenrubin.bsky.social at @contrariannews.org that its losses are "not something that requires you to wreck the paper"

She's also mystified that “Bezos has uttered no words about this” week's mass layoffs

New emergency fund supports US journalists at risk - Committee to Protect Journalists New York, February 5, 2026—Following escalating threats to the safety of journalists nationwide, two international press freedom organizations – the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Inte...

US Journalist Rapid Response Fund launched. cpj.org/2026/02/new-...

Six Ways to Reform ICE and CBP And why congressional "reform" isn't actually the real problem....

The problem of ICE/CBP reform is we have a monster rampaging through our democracy and are trying to restrict *which* cities it can pillage and *how many* civilians it can eat. The problem isn’t the restrictions on the monster; the problem is the monster. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/six-ways-t...

The best reviewer, the best person

Pinned lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · Aug 19, 2021 Almost three years ago, my editor called me early one November morning. A wildfire had sparked near a town called Paradise, he said. Could I go? (1/13) 0:02 / 0:10 lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · 47m I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated. Quote lizzie johnson @lizziejohnsonnn · Jan 25 Waking up without power, heat, or running water. (Again.) But the work here in Kyiv continues. Warming up in the car, writing in pencil — pen ink freezes — by headlamp.

A publisher who lays off a reporter whose pen is freezing because she's covering a frigid war zone while dodging missiles is not an editor you want to work for, in a more perfect world

The hallmark (the “brand”) of the Washington Post has been accountability journalism. Thus, today’s staff decimation is Bezos’s greatest gift to Trump, so much more valuable than the Melania movie, inauguration money, etc. This disaster began, for real, with the Harris endorsement he killed.

Is Jeff Bezos going to destroy the Washington Post? It sure looks like it | Margaret Sullivan He has the chance to be the steward of a national treasure, but he’s blowing it

... "He had the chance to be the steward of a national treasure, a storied news company with a staff as talented as any in the nation," writes @sulliview.bsky.social. "Now, what matters more is turning the Post around financially while staying in Trump’s good graces."

That approach has failed.

Good opportunity for MacKenzie Scott to get a lot of great press for a reasonable price…

Ofc the media is undergoing a business calamity. The WaPo lacked a good biz model.

Anyone saying that explains Jeff Bezos’s move today should be disqualified forever from expressing opinions.

This is abt billionaire power, oligarchy, Trump’s authoritarianism and the threat truth poses to those.

Is Jeff Bezos going to destroy the Washington Post? It sure looks like it | Margaret Sullivan He has the chance to be the steward of a national treasure, but he’s blowing it

Bezos should "reverse course" at the Post, writes @sulliview.bsky.social.

"He can preserve a great news organization and maybe even recover his own legacy as the paper’s steward—a legacy that was looking good for years until he took a strange, Trump-related bad turn."

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

Have you noticed this? I have.

"The news media doesn’t seem to know how to bring anything other than wide-eyed credulity to his utterances, even after all the lies and deceit of the past decade."

That's @sulliview.bsky.social at her site.

margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/dear-media...

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

@sulliview.bsky.social “As always, headlines & news alerts are important. All the nuance in the world in the 12th paragraph doesn’t help much if the headline creates a completely different impression”
margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/dear-media...

Thank you!

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

Great piece by the former public editor for the NYTimes, @sulliview.bsky.social. An amazing newsletter generally speaking as well.

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

Over 10 years of his BS and lies, yet @sulliview.bsky.social still has to write this:

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says

Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism
open.substack.com/pub/margaret...

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

"The news media doesn’t seem to know how to bring anything other than wide-eyed credulity to [Trump's] utterances, even after all the lies and deceit of the past decade," writes @sulliview.bsky.social.

Outlets must start making Trump's lying as much a part of the story as the things he lies about.

Massive win for the people: a federal judge granted a restraining order in our Members’ lawsuit against ICE’s unlawful effort to obstruct congressional oversight. This is a big victory for accountability and we’re going to use our rights and keep fighting for all Members' right to conduct oversight.

Dear media, stop acting like Trump means what he says Whether over "a deal" on Greenland or a "pivot" on ICE, we need far more skepticism

“The idea that Trump is ordering ICE to soften up — whether at protests or in yanking people out of their homes or by rearranging the hierarchy — is hard to believe, and in fact, should not be believed.”

Spot on by @sulliview.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/margaret...