WaPo Journos Have Staged a One Day Walkout as Their Garbage Newspaper Continues to Hemorrage Money

MICHAEL REYNOLDS. Shutterstock Images.

As anyone who grew up in a working class household, particularly with parents who were in unions that occasionally had to wage labor wars every time their collective bargaining agreement was up, it's almost impossible to not take the side of the rank-and-file workers whenever there's a dispute between labor and management. 

And you'd think it's that much easier when the person who owns the management side of the negotiations is one of the world's richest men who got there by putting retail shops out of business and making his truck drivers piss in bottles in order to keep up with their delivery schedules. Jeff Bezos is Montgomery Burns with less hair and charm. He also spent about $250 million on the side hustle that is owning the Washington Post, whose staffers are demanding a pay raise:

NPR - More than 750 journalists and business-side staffers at The Washington Post walked off the job for the day, saying they are angered by the company's decision to embark on massive job cuts while contract negotiations have stalled.

"We did not come to this decision to do this walkout lightly," says Post reporter Marissa Lang, who covers housing and serves on the union's bargaining team. "We all work at The Washington Post because we believe in its mission and we believe in what we do. And we care deeply about the work we do, the people, the communities, the stories we cover."

And yet as hard as it is NOT to take labor's side in any fight, it's virtually impossible to forget where the focus of these same intrepid journalists was about three months ago. In September, these WaPo staffers were so dedicated to their motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness" that they fixed their gaze on the major source of all our societal ills. 

A Pizza Festival.

Like all the great journalist of the past who spoke truth to power, comforted the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable, and saw it as their mission in life to ferret out corruption in all its forms because sunlight is the best disinfected, the Washington Post kept up the proud tradition of Woodward and Bernstein by trying to wreck a fun pizza party:

And even after they were shamed for trying to do so in the most dishonest and devious way imaginable, and even after they failed miserably because zero sponsors backed out of the event, they still ran their amateurish, badly written, hatchet job. A grammatically nightmarish word salad, which Francis was kind enough to correct for them.:

So you'll have to forgive anyone taking management's side in this one. 

But the fact these hacks have the ethical standards of Deadspin is not the only reason to think they don't have a leg to negotiate on. For starters, Bezos is set to lose $100 million on this little vanity project of his. It doesn't matter if he owns a super yacht worth more than my hometown that's so big he has to pay to have bridges disassembled just so he can get it in and out of port. $100 million works out to roughly $2 million per week. Which will make even the richest mogul lose interest in a hobby before you can say "You have 10 minutes to clean out your desks." 

Maybe they didn't teach this to Journalism majors, but I do recall hearing this in the classes I took getting that Business degree I've never put to use. Pretty much every class I took emphasized the point that for-profit companies exist to make money, not lose tons of it. A tough concept to grasp at first, but after hearing it a bunch of times it starts to make sense. 

So when these journos all take to  TikTok to say how much they feel they're worth, it's important to first note they're feelings don't enter into it. A thing is worth exactly whatever someone is willing to pay for it, not some other amount. Whether that's some baby toys at a yard sale, a house, a starting pitcher, a superyacht, or a "Video games reporter and critic" at a newspaper. Strictly from a numbers stand point, they're worth exactly whatever their share of -$100 million is. Which, since there's 750 of them currently taking the day off, would work out to negative $133,333.33 out of each of them.

As far as the reasons they want more than just a 2% raise, every working person can relate. I mean sure, it doesn't exactly look like they're all working on the slaugherhouse floor in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. But still. Working his hard. Money is good to have. The more the better. Totally understandable. But when they bring inflation into the argument, it's going to get awkward for them. Fast. Credit where it's due to the guys from Ruthless for pointing this out, but this was in The Post a week ago:

The Nov. 25 front-page article “Inflation is down, but gripes still going viral,” regarding a fake viral report about a supposed $16 Big Mac meal, exemplified how social media can affect economic perception vs. reality.

Let us not have short-term memories about the economy. The price of gasoline on Thanksgiving Day 2023 was the lowest Thanksgiving Day price since 2020. The price of eggs in October 2023 was back to where it was in April 2018. The price of automobiles is coming down again. Today’s unemployment rate is at its lowest in decades. Interest rates are not expected to increase again anytime soon. Consumer spending is strong. The United States’ gross domestic product is the highest of any country in the world.

You're the same fucking grifters who tried to shut down a fun event for hard-working pizza vendors to show off their products and grow their businesses. Then published a hit job on the whole event, like everyone who had a good time at it and made it a success were destroying society. Then you tried to gaslight everyone who's struggling to make ends meet when the economy is swirling the drain by claiming everything is actually super swell, except for their "gripes still going viral." So forgive us now if your "gripes" about how inflation is killing you fall on deaf ears. Since you just got through saying it doesn't exist and we're all just a bunch of Mr. Grumpypants for thinking it does. 

It would kill my father and mother who were in the phone company union to hear me say this. But Bezos could padlock the Washington Post tomorrow and none of them would be missed. Good luck. But maybe good riddance is order instead.