FAST TIMES AT BEN BRADLEE HIGH: The Washington Post’s week from Hell.
The paper known for its slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” should perhaps be more concerned about its own well-being after the disastrous week it had.
The Washington Post, the once-revered news organization that famously exposed the Watergate scandal leading to a president’s resignation, is still highly respected in the Beltway but has lost its way in recent years among most Americans. From declaring the coronavirus lab-leak theory was a “debunked” “conspiracy” to quickly rejecting the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, the Post of today is simply not the same as the Post of the Nixon era.
But the events that occurred over the past week may be some of the worst that have plagued the Washington Post in its 144-year history.
Speaking of which: Things at the Washington Post are great.Thanks for asking!
It certainly looks apparent that despite the suspension of Weigel over a simple retweet, Sonmez is trying to provoke a disciplinary action from her superiors at the Post, which she can then use as evidence of retaliation for her lawsuit in her appeal.
The public appearance is that the inmates are running the Jeffrey Preston Bezos Asylum and that the Post has a completely upside-down idea of what constitutes an ethical lapse. A single retweet, swiftly retracted, is worth a month-long suspension. However calling out colleges on a public timeline, siccing online mobs on them, leaking internal emails and refusing to comply with workplace directives are allowed to continue. Something stinks at the Washington Post and for once it’s not Dave Weigel.
And the hits just keep on coming! WaPo’s Felicia Sonmez torches ‘White’ colleagues for ‘downplaying’ workplace drama with ‘synchronized tweets.’
Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez continued her scorched-earth tweeting about her colleagues on Thursday, this time taking aim at ‘White,” “star” reporters who expressed solidarity with the paper as the viral infighting has dominated conversation in the media industry.
On Thursday, Sonmez took a flamethrower to fellow staffers in another lengthy series of tweets, attacking those who had posted recent, strikingly similar messages of support for their paper.
“I don’t know who the colleagues anonymously disparaging me in media reports are. But I do know that the reporters who issued synchronized tweets this week downplaying the Post’s workplace issues have a few things in common with each other,” Sonmez wrote during a lengthy Twitter thread.
“They are all white – They are among the highest-paid employees in the newsroom, making double and even triple what some other National desk reporters are making, particularly journalists of color – They are among the ‘stars’ who ‘get away with murder’ on social media,” Sonmez tweeted. “Of course the Washington Post is a great workplace. It is a great workplace *for them.* The system is working *for them.* What about for everyone else? The General Assignment team? The Morning Mix team? The newsletter researchers?”
Sonmez insisted there have been “long-standing issues” within the Post that have not been addressed and that will only continue, even if the media will move on from “trivializing” them as a “Twitter spat.”
Nothing like calling your employer crypto-racists. So how is all of the drama of the gifted children being received outside the writers’ bullpen?
