# The Washington Post under Bezos > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Washington Post under Bezos," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-washington-post-under-bezos/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *John Kiriakou's running account of the decline of a newspaper he subscribes to and no longer recognises — an editorial board he says has gone wholly right-wing and obsequious to its owner, foreign bureaus and sports and local coverage cut back, a comment of his own rejected for criticising Jeff Bezos, and his own short list of what he would want the paper to be instead.* - **Owner:** Jeff Bezos - **Editorial board, per Kiriakou:** Completely right-wing; obsequious to the owner - **Cuts he lists:** Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, foreign bureaus, newsroom and business-side layoffs - **Remaining strategy:** Politics and national security - **His own comment:** Rejected for violating community standards - **What he would keep:** Foreign policy, intelligence, politics, an investigative division, three local reporters **The Washington Post under Bezos** is a subject John Kiriakou has returned to repeatedly as a subscriber rather than a critic at a distance, and on which his position hardened over the course of 2025 and into 2026. ## The editorial page In August 2025 he recalled how large a matter it had seemed when Jeff Bezos announced that the paper would no longer write editorials on a range of issues because everybody has a position and the paper no longer cared. What followed, in his account, was worse than silence: *"now the editorial page is completely right-wing."* Rall's addition — that it was also insanely corporatist — drew his agreement, and the example both men fixed on was an editorial on driverless cars in Boston which mocked objecting Bostonians as Luddites and argued that because the vehicles had proved themselves in Tucson, Boston would present no problem.[1][2][3] By January 2026 his objection had become personal. What made him want to cancel his subscription most, he said, was what had become of the editorial board: *"They may they they're going to get calluses on their knees from the position that they've taken in front of the great and mighty Jeff Bezos. And I just can't I can't stand it. It it just makes me sick."*[4][5] He then described trying to comment on what he called an obsequious pro-billionaire editorial. All he wrote was *"shame on the Washington Post. You really are the paper of the 1%."* The comment was rejected as violating community standards.[6] ## The retrenchment Kiriakou tracked the cuts as they came. The paper announced it would not cover the Winter Olympics, was eaten alive on social media, and agreed to send a skeleton crew; a skeleton crew was then reported for the Super Bowl as well.[7][8] Foreign bureaux, war correspondents and conflict reporters were told to cancel their trips; large layoffs were coming to the newsroom and the business side; sports, local and international were all to be beaten up. The remaining strategy, as he read it, was to focus on politics and national security.[8] His objection to that was the abandonment of local coverage — because no one else can do local except the paper in the local place, and because Washington's local politics are also federal politics.[9] He noted in passing that the *Washington Times* became a thing in the first place, under the ownership of the Unification Church, largely because the *Post*'s sports coverage was a joke.[7] ## The paper he would want Asked what he would do with a magic wand, he answered without hesitation: a *Washington Post* that covered foreign policy, intelligence and politics, that had an investigative division, and that fielded two young hungry journalists — one in Northern Virginia, one in Maryland — and maybe a third covering the District itself. He does not care about the sports; he can get better sports coverage in a hundred other places.[10][4] What he says is not on offer is the national look at issues that matter to the whole country. And on where the *Post* and the *New York Times* seem to be heading instead — two or three people talking about current events on video — his verdict was that he does not need to pay a monthly subscription for that, and that *"people like us and Joe Rogan do a better job than they"* do.[11][10] ## See also - [The Washington Post editorial on the cover-up](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-washington-post-editorial-on-the-cover-up) - [The New York Times problem](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-new-york-times-problem) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-18), at 10:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwweQtSlWCs&t=626s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-18), at 10:59. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwweQtSlWCs&t=659s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-18), at 11:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwweQtSlWCs&t=689s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/ 4. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 31:51. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1911s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 5. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 32:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1942s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 6. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 32:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1973s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 7. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 29:15. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1755s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 8. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 29:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1787s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 9. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 30:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1819s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 10. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 31:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1880s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ 11. Is Trump Bidening Out? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou (2026-01-30), at 30:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDPkwpAs6Io&t=1849s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-30-deprogram-show-with-is-trump-bidening-out-deprogram-with-ted/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-washington-post-under-bezos/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt