Raju Korti
When a newspaper as storied and
influential as The Washington Post is forced to sack nearly a third of its
workforce, it is no longer a management story. It is an industry verdict. For
decades, The Post symbolised the power of print journalism, the romance of
investigative reporting, and the commercial might that once backed serious
newsrooms. Today, even that citadel is cutting departments, shrinking global
ambitions, and scrambling to reinvent itself as a lean digital-first operation
after bleeding tens of millions of dollars year after year.
That moment tells me more about the state of print media than a thousand industry conferences ever could.
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| (Pix a Facebook grab) |
Print advertising, once the lifeblood of newspapers, has steadily migrated to digital platforms, social media influencers, search engines, and algorithm-driven content mills. Classifieds vanished first. Display ads followed. Now even brand advertising is chasing eyeballs rather than credibility. The economics that once sustained large newsrooms simply no longer exist.
And when revenue collapses, everything else follows. Overheads become unbearable. Printing costs rise. Distribution shrinks. Newsrooms are trimmed to skeleton crews. Restructuring becomes a permanent state of existence.
I have watched this decay from close quarters. Having worked with newspapers controlled by self-proclaimed pro-labour outfits, I have seen how hollow lofty slogans sound when survival is at stake. These were organisations that preached worker welfare in editorials while quietly handing out pink slips in offices. No increments for years. No promotions. Frozen careers. At times, brazen requests for pay cuts in the name of “difficult market conditions”.
The irony was almost comic, if it were not tragic. What rarely gets spoken about is the small but powerful coterie within many media houses that continues to thrive regardless of how badly the organisation bleeds. These influential few call the shots, surround themselves with obedient yes-men, and insulate their own positions while entire departments are wiped out. Journalists are told to tighten belts while executive privileges remain untouched. Ethics are preached downward and discarded upward. Long ago, ethics itself became collateral damage.
The print industry, in many places, has been taken over by over-smart operators and ambitious upstarts who treat newspapers not as institutions but as temporary profit machines. They squeeze what they can, cut what they must, and move on richer when the organisation finally hits the barrel. By the time a newspaper folds, their fortunes are already secured.
Digital competition has only accelerated this moral and financial erosion. Today, people increasingly prefer consumption over comprehension. A thirty-second clip generates more engagement than a carefully researched exposé. A sensational visual travels faster than a nuanced article. Many would rather watch a lurid video of Jeffrey Epstein chasing young girls than read a serious investigation describing his crimes in carefully constructed prose.
Substance has become a liability. Sensation has become currency. Mainstream media has been overshadowed by public relations agencies, event management firms, spin doctors, social media strategists, so-called influencers and advertiser-driven narratives. The boundaries between news, opinion, promotion, publicity and propaganda have blurred beyond recognition. Everything is content now. Everything is branding. Everything is monetisable.
The result is an overkill of information that leaves audiences overwhelmed and oddly indifferent. In this chaos, traditional newspapers are fighting on two fronts. Financially against collapsing revenues. Credibility-wise against a digital ecosystem that rewards noise over truth.
The Washington Post’s retrenchment is therefore not a failure of one newspaper. It is a symptom of a broken business model struggling to adapt to a ruthless attention economy. The New York Times’ success, while admirable, is also a reminder that only scale, brand power and aggressive digital reinvention can offer a lifeboat. For most regional and mid-sized papers, that lifeboat simply does not exist. They are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
Every round of layoffs is justified as restructuring. Every salary freeze is called prudence. Every closure is branded strategic transformation. But beneath the corporate vocabulary lies a simple truth: the old print economy is collapsing faster than anyone publicly admits.
I am often asked if I miss the newsroom. I miss the craft. I miss the conversations. I miss the adrenaline of deadlines. But I do not miss the hypocrisy, the insecurity, the silent fear of the next restructuring mail, or the knowledge that loyalty is usually rewarded with redundancy.
In a strange way, I am glad I stepped out of that vicious circle for good. Life on one’s own is tougher, financially uncertain, and often unforgiving. But it offers something the modern print industry increasingly cannot: dignity, independence and freedom from institutional decay. Survival may be hard, but it is honest.
What we are witnessing today is not merely a technological shift. It is the dismantling of an entire economic and ethical ecosystem that once supported serious journalism. Some giants will adapt and dominate. Many others will quietly disappear.
The tragedy is not just about newspapers shutting down. It is about the slow erosion of a profession that once believed truth could sustain itself.
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