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WaPo Commits Staff Amputations in Massive Layoffs, and CNN Encourages Kids to...Go Play With Nazis?

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Feb 04, 2026
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Pathological Media Amnesia – CNN

  • Teaching kids to play with the Gestapo is a questionable lesson.

At CNN, they went full swooning praise over a story from the Minneapolis protests and never paused to consider what it was promoting. In a feature on a pair of teenage siblings who are combating ICE actions in their city, CNN makes it sound wondrous that they are foregoing their childhood to battle the Feds.

Small Issue: This defies all the previous coverage out of Minneapolis from these journalists.

For months, we have heard nightmare scenarios on the regular, and then the episodes involving Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti ramped up the reporting rhetoric. So this leads to a question: If we are told that ICE agents are murderers and they are behaving like the Gestapo by gunning down innocent citizens, why would you think it is a wise idea to send kids out to do battle with those "Nazis"?!

Reporting on the Mirror – WASHINGTON POST

  • Can it be a "bloodbath" when the heart already stopped beating?

The announcement was made official today – major layoffs are taking place at the Washington Post. This is severe enough that you cannot describe it as "cuts"; this is more like amputations.

Nearly every department in the paper was affected, with some entirely ended. The famed Books section is gone. The sports division has been eliminated, something feared when the reporters there were being sent to Italy to cover the Olympics. Many foreign bureaus have been closed.

All told, one-third of the staff has been cut, and this follows the 400 jobs ended or taking buyouts that occurred last year.

Note that many of those crying today about this move were the same ones in November 2024, after the paper declined to endorse a candidate in the election, who called for people to stop buying the paper. It is estimated that this led to 2 million subscribers cancelling their accounts.

Legalized Press-titution – THE NEW YORK TIMES

  • The easiest thing to do is spend other people's money.

At The New York Times, Peter Baker saw the announced staff cuts and came to a conclusion: Jeff Bezos could afford it!

He listed off the profits Bezos enjoyed over the past few years, suggesting that WaPo's losses were a pittance. That "meager" amount has been estimated to be around $100 million in losses in each of the past few years, but Baker believes that this is a sound indicator of things needing to remain as the status quo.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – WASHINGTON POST

  • This column could be entitled "Exhibit A."

If you want a decent article that typifies why WaPo is hemorrhaging cash like an oil derrick hit with an RPG, here is this piece on the upcoming Olympic Games the paper is not covering.

It is a hand-wringing assessment of how difficult it will be to find locations to host the Winter Olympics due to climate change.

The judges score this one with Twos and lower.

Race to the Bottom – THE INDEPENDENTS

  • She is innocent because the law has a different name?

Along with Don Lemon's arrest, others were taken into custody that day, including another journalist, Georgia Fort. She opposes her being charged, but not because her First Amendment rights were violated. No, it is because she is a black woman, and the law she broke seemingly does not count because it was written initially to protect black people from KKK incursions.

We must have missed the language that says the law only applies if it is white people who are mobbing a black organization, but since Ms. Fort is a journalist, we should just take her at her word.