492 replies to this topic

[lanforod]

I think Mike K is an AI. He's got the same accuracy level and biases. Prove me wrong.

[Mike K.]

People swear Dasmo is Mike K.

[LJ]

I've changed my own oil maybe 65 times.  Re-done my brakes maybe 40 times.  NEVER used a torque wrench.

I have never changed my own oil or brakes, hope the mechanics knew what they were doing. 

Had one garage leave the oil filler cap off once, which made a mess of my garage. 

 

Did get a couple of free oil changes out of it though.

[Victoria Watcher]

 

 

 

Washington Post to lay off a third of staff in newsroom and other departments

 

Books department shuttered, Washington-area news department to be restructured

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...staff-9.7073655

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 February 2026 - 03:02 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

[Victoria Watcher]

Ben Shapiro:

 

 

 

 

Well, tragedy occurred in the Bezos universe yesterday when 16,000 people were cut from Amazon. This is what the media were very, very concerned about. Amazon said that it was going to cut some 16,000 corporate employees. The first round of cuts in October led to about 14,000 white collar employees receiving pink slips. And even at the time, Amazon was talking about 30,000 job cuts. So, of course, people in the world of journalism were deeply affected. They were really upset about the tens of thousands of people who are about to lose their jobs at Amazon, one of the most successful companies in America and in the world.

 

Oh, I'm just kidding. They didn't care about that. They barely covered that. That lasted in the news for like five seconds. What they are really upset about in the Bezos universe is that the Washington Post is going to lay off one-third of its staff.

 

So the Washington Post is cutting 300-plus jobs. I'm just going to point out where the sympathies lie. 30,000 people lose their jobs at Amazon because Amazon is cost-cutting and re-evaluating thanks to AI. And the journalists are like, well, you know, those are people who work at Amazon. Those might be factory workers. Those might be middle management. They're not us.

 

But at the Washington Post, they laid off the third string journalist in Gaza who may or may not be a contractor for Hamas. They laid off the race and ethnicity reporter for the Washington Post. And my god, the American promise has been sullied and violated. This cannot be.

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post is cutting one-third of its staff, slashing hundreds of jobs across the newsroom and other departments in an effort to trim costs and reshape coverage. The layoffs will affect journalists in nearly all news departments, including the sports, foreign, technology, and breaking news teams, as well as business and technology staff.

 

The executive editor, Matt Murray, wrote in a note to newsroom staff on Wednesday, "If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition." It is unclear how many of these cuts are coming from the newsroom. The Post is closing its sports department in its current form, but is going to retain some roles in that coverage area. It's also shrinking its international coverage and it will focus on national news and features, investigations and advice on health and wellness topics.

 

The Post will continue to have some correspondents in about a dozen international locations and they're going to focus on issues mostly related to national security because that's what readers actually want to hear. The Post lost $77 million in 2023, $100 million in 2024. It had significant traffic declines because digital media is a tough business.

 

In recent weeks, Post journalists made public pleas to Jeff Bezos to maintain their jobs. Well, it turns out that the Washington Post, like the Daily Wire, like a lot of other for-profit institutions, is not a nonprofit. If journalists wish to start their own nonprofit and get a bunch of left-wing funders to put millions of dollars behind their jobs, they are free to do that. And there are, in fact, organizations that operate as charitable organizations that do acts of journalism on occasion.But the idea that Jeff Bezos owes it to the employees of the Washington Post to maintain their jobs when they are losing money is crazy. Nonetheless, the response from the media ecosystem is absolute shock and horror.

 

Emanuel Felton, the race and ethnicity reporter at the Washington Post, put out a statement: "I'm among the hundreds of people laid off by the Post. This comes six months after hearing in a national meeting that race coverage drives subscriptions. This wasn't a financial decision. It was an ideological one." He says the other reporter on my team covering race was also laid off as well as the editor in charge of race coverage across national. The team covering America Beyond DC is now 90% quiet.

Robert McCartney, a retired Washington Post editor, correspondent and columnist, said, "39 years had paper before Bezos began gutting it." He says, "Reader asks, is democracy dies in darkness now the mission statement?"

 

Do you remember when the Washington Post decided after Donald Trump was elected—this before Bezos bought the paper—that they were going to retitle, they were going to put on their masthead the statement, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." The idea being that Donald Trump was an inherent threat to all things democratic and the Washington Post would hold him responsible.

 

Briana Tucker, the National Politics Breaking News reporter and the National Association of Black Journalists Political Task Force Chair, put out a statement: "I'm affected by layoffs at the Washington Post today. There aren't enough words to describe the immense privilege and profound responsibility I felt since hired at 25 as an editor. As a black woman covering politics, a dwindling cohort today, that feeling is magnified."

 

Peter Baker over at the New York Times, the chief White House correspondent, put out a tweet listing Jeff Bezos's wealth in 2024 ($194 billion), in 2025 ($215 billion), today ($249.4 billion), net increase since 2024 ($55.4 billion), cost of Bezos's 417 ft super yacht ($500 million), Amazon investment in Melania ($75 million), original Bezos purchase price of the Washington Post in 2013 ($250 million), Bezos's net worth in 2013 ($25.2 billion), net increase in Bezos's wealth since buying the Post ($224.2 billion), last reported annual losses of Post ($100 million), number of years Bezos could absorb those losses with what he makes in a single week (five).

 

Bernie Sanders put out a statement: "If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie and $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff." Democracy dies in oligarchy.

 

In a second, we'll get to why the Washington Post is actually in trouble, why they've been failing. 

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/fSt...1N-VnBAniLwfqZ7

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 February 2026 - 01:48 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Babylon Bee:

 

 

 

Journalists Shocked To Be Laid Off From Obsolete Media Outlet That Loses $100 Million Annually

 

https://babylonbee.c...illion-annually

[Mike K.]

Canada’s media establishment will collapse without federal funding.

[Victoria Watcher]

[Victoria Watcher]

[spanky123]

Canada’s media establishment will collapse without federal funding.

 

Which is exactly what many Governments want. Nobody to question their policies or what they are telling the public.

[LJ]

Which is exactly what many Governments want. Nobody to question their policies or what they are telling the public.

Now if only we had a media that did that in Canada, oh, I guess we will when the Conservatives get back in power.

[max.bravo]

Bit of a confusing read in the TC today.
A local wolf-dog hybrid named Calia was put down.
The SPCA spokesperson is named Kaila Wolf. Wolf has some thoughts on Wolf regulations.

https://www.timescol...ptable-11937361