Jeff Bezos attends Washington Post morning editorial briefing as staff prepare for layoffs

Jeff Bezos made a surprise appearance at a Washington Post editorial meeting on Thursday morning for the first time in more than a year.

His in-person attendance raised fears among staff about the seriousness of upcoming layoffs by the newspaper, which it bought in 2013 with ambitions of bringing it into the digital age.

In recent years, the Washington Post has suffered from declining advertising revenue, a decline in site traffic, and a dearth of new subscribers. Last month, its publisher, Fred Ryan, announced layoffs in the new year.

Despite your suggestion the cuts would likely only affect a ‘single-digit percentage’ of its 2,500-person workforce, the news sparked a staff frenzy and the paper’s union membership grew.

His union said it now has about 670 members, about 67 percent of those eligible, with about 60 of them joining since the announcement in December.

Staff have received little information about the layoffs and last month the Amazon CEO declined to comment on them, meaning his visit on Thursday only added to the panic.

His in-person attendance raised fears among staff about the seriousness of upcoming layoffs within the newspaper, which he bought in 2013.

‘[People] I don’t know what to do with it’, said a journalist the daily beast.

During the meeting, Bezos remained fairly quiet, sitting next to The Post’s senior editor, Sally Buzbee, in a glass-windowed office on the sixth floor of the newspaper’s headquarters.

“I am delighted to be here and see all these faces,” he announced at the beginning of the meeting, the New York Times informed. “Thank you for letting me listen,” she continued.

As he was leaving the meeting, an employee in a red shirt wearing the union insignia stopped him to ask why he planned to fire staff without offering them purchases.

Bezos responded that he had come to listen, not answer questions, but stressed that he was committed to The Post’s journalism.

“As Bezos walks through the office, we want him to see that Post employees are a powerful and united front,” the union wrote in an email to its members in the days before.

A union member in a red shirt stopped Bezos after the meeting to ask why he planned to fire staff without offering them purchases.

A spokesperson for The Post confirmed that the layoffs were still going to happen in the first quarter of this year, but did not say exactly when.

He said in a public statement on Thursday: “We hope that Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has heard the calls from employees to stop these impending layoffs that, to the best of our knowledge, are neither financially necessary nor rooted in any informed business strategy.” “. From publisher Fred Ryan.

“Jeff will visit The Post this week and meet with Fred Ryan, Sally Buzbee and other staff,” a representative for The Post wrote in an email to The Daily Beast.

The spokesperson confirmed that the layoffs would still occur in the first quarter of this year, but did not say exactly when.

The outlet reported that the meeting passed like any other day, with editors discussing their current stories and news trends.

At one point, an editor mentioned that he planned to run a story about the termination of AmazonSmile, one of Bezos’s charitable efforts. that story was published at 11:37 a.m. on Thursday.

On Wednesday, around 18,000 Amazon workers woke up to the news that their employment had been terminated, “effective immediately.”

The layoffs were the latest in a series of cost-cutting measures by Amazon and overseen by Bezos.