Inmates are running the newsroom asylums

Say what you want about Washington Post hypochondriac tech reporter Taylor Lorenz, but she was correct when she said that “the journalism industry is overrun by rich, elite, underqualified entitled, nepo babies.”

In several high-profile mainstream media outlets, the inmates are still attempting to wrest control away from those put in charge of running the asylum.

This was evident last week when Washington Post CEO Will Lewis announced the sudden departure of executive editor Sally Buzbee, who oversaw a tumultuous period as the Post slid off the deep end of progressive politics. Lewis was blunt with his staff, announcing a restructuring of staff resources. When Lewis appointed new management, staff members reportedly asked him if he had interviewed any women or people of color.

It was reported that when Lewis was confronted at an all-hands meeting, he spoke candidly with the Washington Post staff, saying, “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff.”

Maybe it’s the dry British bluntness, but he’s absolutely correct. The Washington Post could absolutely benefit from a fresh start and from a journalistic perspective that doesn’t tell its audience what to think. That brashness lasted all of a couple of days. Then Lewis issued an apology that came on the back of several news outlets hammering him for his treatment of his staff.

This has become a common theme in recent years — journalists running to other news outlets to tattle on their employer. Such was the case with Felicia Sonmez, who created a social media storm by throwing shade at her own colleagues.

Another case happened this week when National Review published a piece, thin gruel though it seemed, about the slow-motion car wreck inside of the Wall Street Journal over similar decisions. Whenever new editors are brought in, the inmates resort to tropes about gender and race, thus proving the point of new management. No one is reading their work anymore — and more importantly, the trust in media outlets is at all-time lows, somewhere beneath Congress and toxic sewer sludge.

At every point, these young activist journalists are given feedback, constructive criticism, blunt honesty about what they’ve become — and at every point, they push back, insisting the problem is not with them, but with a sexist, racist, hierarchal system of management. They will either learn or they won’t.

Perhaps it simply is a case of foreign British editors coming into American newsrooms without the perspective of race and gender narratives. Both Will Lewis of the Washington Post and Emma Tucker of the Wall Street Journal are of British origin (through no fault of their own); perhaps they were hired specifically to quash these petulant rebellions within their own establishments, obsessed with race-based coverage of every newsworthy event under the sun.

One thing remains, however, that until that day comes, these newsrooms will still be run like liberal arts college campuses. There might even be a few tent encampments in the main lobby of the buildings. If the worst thing Tucker and Lewis are accused of is being out of touch with what their inmates demand, then perhaps the answer is not to cater, cave and apologize. Perhaps the answer is to stand firm — and tell them no.