One of the most storied organizations in American journalism is in crisis. It's losing reporters, shedding readers and facing a staff rebellion against publisher Will Lewis.

The Washington Post has been swamped by "one debacle after another" since Lewis took charge a year ago, said NPR. The decision by owner (and billionaire Amazon founder) Jeff Bezos to cancel the Post's traditional presidential endorsement in an apparent effort to placate Donald Trump was a huge blow, causing "hundreds of thousands of subscribers" to cancel their subscriptions. Additionally, layoffs have contributed to plummeting morale.

More than 400 Post staffers last week sent a letter to Bezos asking him to "get personally involved to turn the paper back in the right direction," said Poynter. The staffers said they were "deeply alarmed by recent leadership decisions." Bezos did not immediately reply. 

What did the commentators say?
Bezos has "plunged my beloved Washington Post into darkness," said Eleanor Clift at The Daily Beast. Post reporters have done a "first-rate job covering Trump," but Bezos' decision to pacify the incoming president (with the nonendorsement, as well Amazon's $40 million expenditure on a documentary about Melania Trump) has raised the specter that reporting could be "compromised by anything that could damage Bezos' financial interests." Bezos' decision to get on Trump's good side has "ramifications far beyond the Post newsroom."

If the Post is to remain viable, it must "retain, not lose, its talent," said The Guardian. It's not "unreasonable to question" whether the Post can maintain its independence in the Trump era, and Bezos "may not care." But if he does care, he should "show up — soon" in the newsroom to talk to reporters and recommit to the "importance of editorial freedom." 

What next?
On the eve of Trump's inauguration, the Post unveiled a new mission statement: "Riveting Storytelling for All of America." The slogan is intended as an "internal rallying point for employees," said The New York Times. And the paper's chief strategy officer has announced a goal of reaching 200 million paying users. But that's an audacious target. The Post currently has fewer than 3 million digital subscribers.

Hundreds of inmates joined the firefighters battling the wildfires in Southern California as part of a long-running controversial labor program. But while these crews brought "much-needed manpower to depleted fire crews," their presence also "revived criticism of the practice, including over their low pay for dangerous work," said The New York Times. 

How do prison labor programs work?
These programs have links to the passage of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime," a loophole that critics and prison rights advocates say permits exploitative labor and involuntary servitude. While the prisoners make well below minimum wage, they are part of a workforce that produces "more than $2 billion a year in goods and commodities and over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they are warehoused," the ACLU and The University of Chicago's Global Human Rights Clinic said in a 2022 joint report. In exchange, the imprisoned are paid an average of 52 cents an hour nationally — or nothing in seven states. 

Why are these programs controversial?
Less than 10 states have amended their constitutions to abolish forced prison labor. In many states, prison work programs persist and are sometimes mandatory. "I don't think we have gotten rid of convict leasing," Darrick Hamilton, an economist and the director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at the New School, said to The New York Times. The ACLU found that 76% of incarcerated workers said that the prison mandated working or else the workers risked facing additional punishment such as solitary confinement or loss of visitation privileges. 

In 2024, voters in California and Nevada were presented with the opportunity to ban the use of prisoners as unpaid labor. Nevada's ban passed, but California voters rejected Proposition 6, which would have amended the constitution to remove language that allows involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment. Some imprisoned firefighters love their work, said Lori Wilson, the California Assembly member who spearheaded Prop. 6. They just wish they were paid more.