A Letter to Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post

Dear Jeff Bezos and the leadership team of The Washington Post,

As you know, I am Ben Meiselas, the co-founder and chairman of the MeidasTouch Network, now the largest independent news network in the world.

I never thought I would need to write this letter.

The Washington Post was once a standard-bearer for American journalism. It stood for fearless investigative reporting, for holding the powerful accountable, and for the simple but radical idea that democracy cannot survive without a free press.

That institution is now being destroyed.

Roughly one-third of your reporting staff has been eliminated. Some of the most respected journalists in the profession—people with decades-long careers devoted to serious investigative work—were discarded. Not with dignity. Not with gratitude. But with a cold, generic letter from human resources.

That level of callousness tells us everything.

Let’s be clear about what this really is. This is not restructuring. This is not belt-tightening. This is not a difficult but necessary business decision.

This is capitulation to authoritarianism.

While journalists were being purged from The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos chose to spend approximately $75 million funding a movie about Melania Trump. At the same time, Donald Trump, an open fascist who has vowed revenge against the press, continues his campaign to crush independent journalism, aided by billionaire allies and compliant corporate media executives.

This is what bending the knee looks like.

Trump’s movement is not simply hostile to journalism. It is fundamentally authoritarian. It seeks to silence dissent, punish truth-tellers, and replace reporting with propaganda. We are already watching this play out across corporate media, including at CBS, where pressure, intimidation, and capitulation have become routine.

What is happening at The Washington Post fits squarely into that pattern.

When you gut investigative reporting, you are not being neutral.
When you purge respected journalists, you are taking a side.
And when you do it as Trump and his right-wing oligarchs escalate their fascist attacks on the press, the intent is unmistakable.

This is how journalism is killed. Not all at once, but piece by piece, through fear, obedience, and surrender.

It is painful to watch a once-great institution fall this way. But it has also made something else clear.

As corporate media collapses under the weight of billionaire cowardice, independent journalism is rising.

At the MeidasTouch Network, we are expanding our investigative reporting, growing our reach, and holding authoritarians accountable because we refuse to bow to fascism. We believe journalism’s job is not to appease power, but to confront it.

To the journalists who were just laid off: if you want to do real investigative work, if you want to expose corruption, if you want to defend democracy instead of accommodating authoritarianism, we see you. As we continue to grow, those are exactly the voices we intend to bring into this movement.

This is the crossroads.

Corporate news organizations are betraying their mission.

And authoritarianism is advancing because too many institutions are surrendering without a fight.

Independent journalism is fighting back. But we cannot do it alone.

If you’re reading this and you believe democracy requires a free and fearless press, please subscribe. And if you can, become a paid subscriber. Your support allows us to hire more journalists, expand investigations, and build the kind of media ecosystem that fascism fears most.

As corporate media kneels, we stand.
As journalism is attacked, we fight.
And as authoritarianism rises, we will not be silent.

— Ben Meiselas