The following article, Woke Employees: Get With the New Program or Get Out, was first published on The Black Sphere.

Watching the mainstream media squirm in the post-Trump era is like binge watching The Walking Dead – Media Edition.

And now, in a twist nobody saw coming (except everyone with a functioning brain), The Washington Post—yes, that bastion of democracy-defending journalism—is undergoing what can only be described as a corporate exorcism.

In a memo that reads like a breakup letter to the perpetually offended, WaPo CEO Will Lewis told his staff, in so many words: If you can’t handle the truth (or at least the new truth), there’s the door.

The Memo Heard ‘Round the Newsroom

Here’s the gist of Lewis’s not-so-subtle ultimatum:

“Understand and respect, however, that our chosen path is not for everyone… If you think that it’s time to move on to a new chapter, the VSP [Voluntary Separation Program] helps you take that next step with more security.”

Translation: We’re done pretending your activist rants are journalism. Take the money and run before we have to escort you out.

This isn’t just a shift—it’s a full-blown ideological retreat. The same paper that spent years masquerading as the guardian of democracy (while peddling conspiracy theories about Russian collusion and J6 “insurrections”) is now telling its staff to either get on board with “American values” or get lost.

Bezos’s Sudden Attack of Common Sense

Even more shocking? This memo from the new CEO comes on the heels of Jeff Bezos—yes, that Jeff Bezos, the guy who turned WaPo into a glorified leftist blog—issuing a directive that the paper’s editorial pages must now promote “personal liberties and free markets.” Worse (for the woke crowd), Bezos vowed not to publish pieces opposing those principles.

Imagine the horror in the newsroom. No more anti-capitalist screeds? No more lectures about how the First Amendment is problematic? What’s next—balanced reporting?

It’s almost as if Bezos looked at the cratering subscriptions and realized that maybe, just maybe, people don’t want to pay for propaganda.

According to a 2023 Pew Research study, newspaper circulation has been in freefall for years, with trust in media hitting historic lows. Who could’ve guessed that calling half the country “deplorables” wasn’t a winning business strategy?

The New York Times: A Slow-Motion Train Wreck

WaPo isn’t the only legacy outlet in crisis. The New York Times—once the gold standard of journalism—has devolved into a parody of itself, where the only thing more inflated than their self-importance is their subscription price.

The Times has hemorrhaged readers who are tired of being lectured by coastal elites who think “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is a slogan, not a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their recent internal town hall meltdown, where staffers openly revolted over leadership’s refusal to take an even more activist stance, was a masterclass in corporate delusion.

And let’s not forget their disastrous foray into “woke AI” with their botched ChatGPT integration, which somehow managed to be both biased and incompetent. Even the Wall Street Journal—no conservative bastion itself—couldn’t resist mocking the Times for its hilariously tone-deaf approach to technology.

CNN and MSNBC: The Titanic Twins of Cable News

If print media is in freefall, cable news is in full-blown nose-dive-into-the-ocean mode. CNN, once the “most trusted name in news,” is now the “most ignored name in news.” Ratings have collapsed so spectacularly that even Anderson Cooper—a man who once seemed genetically engineered for CNN’s brand of smug liberalism—is reportedly eyeing the exit.

Think about that: Anderson Cooper, a man who built his career on Hurricane Katrina coverage and “Republicans are evil” monologues, might be jumping ship. That’s like Captain Smith abandoning the Titanic before it even hit the iceberg.

And then there’s MSNBC, the network that somehow convinced itself that Rachel Maddow—a woman who now broadcasts once a week—was worth a $30 million-a-year contract. The problem? Her ratings have tanked, proving that even the most devoted blue-haired activists have better things to do than watch her rehash the same “Trump is Hitler” monologues for the 8,000th time.

The Wall Street Journal: The Last Semi-Sane Paper Standing?

Amid this media carnage, the Wall Street Journal stands as a rare outlier—not because it’s immune to bias (it’s not), but because it at least pretends to care about things like “markets” and “economics.”

But even the Journal isn’t safe. Its opinion section remains a battleground between actual conservatives and the “But Trump!” neoliberals who still think Liz Cheney is a thought leader. Still, compared to the Times and WaPo, it’s practically The Federalist Papers.

Where Do Woke Journalists Go to Die?

The real question now is: What happens to the snowflakes who can’t handle this new reality?

In the Before Times (pre-Trump), leftist journalists could spew nonsense with impunity, knowing their résumé would only get more impressive. Criticize conservatives? Instant promotion. Call Trump Hitler? Pulitzer consideration. But now? The market for unhinged activism disguised as journalism is drying up faster than a puddle in the Sahara.

USAID—long a refuge for failed activists masquerading as “experts”—is tightening its belt. Academia is broke and increasingly irrelevant. Even BuzzFeed is laying off woke warriors left and right. So where do they go?

My guess? Substack. Because nothing says “I’ve lost all credibility” like charging $5 a month for rants that even Twitter won’t amplify anymore.

The Death of Fake News (And the Birth of Something Worse?)

Let’s not kid ourselves—WaPo’s “reinvention” isn’t some noble return to objectivity. It’s a survival tactic. The public has wised up to the game, and the media’s credibility is in tatters. A 2023 Gallup poll found that only 32% of Americans trust the media—a number that drops to 14% for Republicans.

So is WaPo actually changing? Or is this just another pivot—a “we’re not fake news, we swear!” rebrand? Time will tell. But one thing’s for sure: The days of unchallenged leftist media dominance are over.

And for that, we can all raise a glass.

Final Thought: If WaPo does manage to course-correct, it’ll be the first time in decades they’ve done something their readers actually want.

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