U.S. News

The Washington Post is working on plans to get content from alternative sources like Substack contributors and “nonprofessional writers” aided by an AI editor and writing coach, reported The New York Times’ media reporter Ben Mullin.

The new content strategy comes after months of turmoil at the Post as staffers have bristled at efforts by owner Jeff Bezos and publisher and CEO Will Lewis to cut costs, increase revenue, and adopt a more right-leaning, MAGA-friendly tone, including directing the paper to forgo an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris last fall and a February staff-wide email from Bezos announcing a “new direction” for the Opinion Section.

According to Mullin’s report Tuesday afternoon, the program has been internally named “Ripple” and the research and development for it started over a year ago. It seeks to “sharply expand” the Post’s lineup of columnists in an effort to “appeal to readers who want more breadth than The Post’s current opinion section and more quality than social platforms like Reddit and X.”

This would entail adding opinion pieces from other newspapers around the country, popular Substack writers, “and eventually nonprofessional writers,” reported Mullin, to be posted on the Post’s website and app, separate and distinct from the paper’s opinion section and outside the Post’s paywall.

Right, because you turn to a newspaper for the lack of experience. This is essentially, "fuck it, entry level is too expensive" while turning on a firehose that will allegedly include human editors at the tail end.

That's not how this ends.