Fourth Estate

Once a beacon of groundbreaking American journalism, the masthead that helped expose Watergate and held presidents to account is now undergoing sweeping cuts that have shaken its newsroom. More than 300 journalists have been laid off at The Washington Post, foreign correspondents, climate reporters, local staff, entire desks dismantled. For many inside the newsroom, it wasn’t just the scale of the cuts that shocked, it was the way they were handled. Journalists reportedly learned they had lost their jobs via email and social media. Owner Jeff Bezos was absent. Publisher Will Lewis was absent. And questions are now swirling about leadership, strategy, and the future of one of the world’s most influential newspapers. This week on Fourth Estate, Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 2013 to 2021, and the author of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and THE WASHINGTON POST, joins Tina Quinn to discuss the gutting of the paper, what’s gone wrong, and whether a future for it still exists.