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- Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has released his first statement since the paper enacted broad job cuts.
- The Amazon billionaire said, "data tells us what is valuable and where to focus."
- It's notable since critics have accused Bezos of acting ideologically in his stewardship of the Post.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos gave his first public statement since the paper enacted massive job cuts this week, and it focused on "data" and understanding reader interests.
The billionaire Amazon founder, who built one of the world's most valuable companies with a relentless focus on customer satisfaction, indicated he wanted to see that same energy at the Post.
"The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity," Bezos wrote. "Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus."
Bezos' statement came as Post CEO Will Lewis announced he was stepping down, to be replaced in an interim capacity by Post CFO Jeff D'Onofrio.
In his own statement, D'Onofrio said that "customer data will drive our decisions, sharpening our edge in delivering what is most valuable to our audiences."
Bezos and D'Onofrio's statements struck a similar tone to comments made by the paper's top editor, Matt Murray, in addressing staff earlier this week.
"Today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people's lives in what has become a more crowded, competitive, and complicated media landscape," Murray said during a staff call on Wednesday. "For too long, we've operated with a structure that's too rooted in the days when we were a quasi-monopoly local newspaper."
Following the layoffs, Murray spoke repeatedly about focusing on areas of reader interest and understanding audience data in an appearance on the Puck podcast "The Grill Room."
He said that when he was brought on, he felt the company hadn't "fully embraced the digital internet revolution the right way."
He added that the company had a "long way to go in using data — data to inform what we wrote, data to inform how we publish, data to understand our audience, data to understand our readers, data to understand our prospects."
The outspoken focus on data from Post leadership has drawn some criticism.
"'Customer data' is what has replaced 'focus group' for the same type of folks who pretty much killed Sports Illustrated by stamping out its originality and magnetism in favor of formulaic swill," The Atlantic's Sally Jenkins, formerly of the Post, wrote Saturday on X.
Still, the messaging from Post leadership could help appease some critics who have seen management moves in recent years as rooted in political ideology and not data — though it will be difficult to win them over.
The Post faced a revolt both inside the newsroom and among readers when Bezos made a late-hour call in 2024 that the paper wouldn't endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years. NPR reported that more than 200,000 subscriptions were canceled in the days following.
The paper faced another round of criticism in February 2025 when Bezos decided to reorient the Post's opinion section — generally considered the owner's prerogative — around personal liberties and free markets.
Former Post executive editor Martin Baron, who worked closely with Bezos during his tenure atop the paper, wrote in a LinkedIn post after the layoffs that the Post's challenges had been made "infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top."
Critics of Bezos' moves have said he should consider financially supporting the paper, given its role in society.
"It just seems heartbreaking that he doesn't feel the paper is important enough to bankroll," Sally Quinn, the longtime journalist and widow of former Post executive editor, Ben Bradlee, said this week on CNN.
Bezos said in his statement that he felt the Post's leadership going forward could build an "exciting and thriving next chapter" for the paper.