WaPo Night Fever: Lauren Sanchez Bezos and Jeff Bezos attend the EE72 Magazine launch party on September 12, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by The Hapa Blonde/GC Images)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s edition, The Washington Post – battered by buyouts and a mass exodus of star reporters – is starting to get its swagger back. But in tonight’s edition, we reveal why this holiday season is going to be far from merry for many of WaPo’s journalists.
Also today, with the Air Puck deal now closed, we have a report on an all-hands held Monday where Puck founder Jon Kelly outlined an ambitious future (“lots of corporate speak,” one person familiar with the situation told us) for the new combined Air Puck team, all the while laying off a number of Air Mail execs and editors at the same time.
Plus, Breaker caught up with Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg and food columnist J Lee ahead of the launch of their new podcast Expense Account with some handy advice for emerging food writers.
Finally, The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau gets a visit from the top brass, McClatchy guts its Washington bureau, and we have a scene report from the launch of Alex Heath’s Sources newsletter and ACCESS podcast.
Mentioned tonight: Rachel Maddow, John Dickerson, Graydon Carter, Robert Thomson, Almar Latour, Emma Tucker, Patrick Radden Keefe, John Avlon, Maureen Dowd, Elizabeth Spiers, Nicholas Thompson, Adam Gabbatt, Diane Pizzariello, Ashok Sinha, Fraser Nelson, Gerry Cardinale, Joe Aston, Michael Grynbaum, Gabe Brotman, Sara Fischer, Kerry Flynn, Ken Li, Jamie Heller, Peter Kafka, Jason Rapp, Maxi Tani, Bradley Singer, Hasan Hashmi, Lauren Starke, Aude White, Julia Alexander, Nayeema Raza, Nilay Patel, Valerie Combs, Richard Edelman, David Rosenberg, Dana Brown, Max Tcheyan, J.J. Colao, Charlotte Klein and more.
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Bezos Swings The Axe
The Washington Post has been getting its swagger back lately after a tumultuous period in its storied history.
A mass exodus of star reporters was followed by a round of personnel buyouts that saw decades of WaPo historical institutional knowledge walk out the door.
In recent months, the Post has gotten back to business and broken a string of agenda-driving scoops.
The Jeff Bezos-owned paper has led the pack on the demolition of the White House’s east wing to make way for a new ballroom, as well as cracking yarns on national security and immigration.
But The Post is in for a brutal end to the year, Breaker has learned, with a fresh round of layoffs expected to…
Air Puck’s Shaky Flight
(Exclusive.) Puck co-founder, Jon Kelly, convened the newly formed Air Puck staff for an all-hands Monday just days after the deal for Puck to acquire Air Mail closed.
Kelly gave the troops, who did not have to travel to their new “South Tribeca” HQ as the all-hands was done over Zoom, a rousing reception about their new world order, which always ends in a “fantastic,” “amazing” or “brilliant” week as he notes in his must-read Saturday newsletter, “The Backstory.”
Kelly wasted no time laying people off, including…
The Breaker Pod: Vicky Ward on Epstein, Kushner, Power & The Golden Age of Journalism
Vicky Ward has reported for Vanity Fair, CNN, and she’s a New York Times Bestselling author. Today, she’s the founder of her own Substack, Vicki Ward Investigates, and she’s our guest on this week's edition of The Breaker Pod coming to you from iconic steakhouse Delmonico’s in the Financial District (cheers to restaurateur Max Tucci for inviting us down).
In this episode, Ward discusses details of her now decades-long investigation into the crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein, as well as reflecting on the recently released memoir by one of his accusers, Virginia Giuffre, and talks to us about how the media covers power and abuse.
Ward also shared her thoughts on Jared Kushner and Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson who she is writing an upcoming book on with James Patterson. Ward also went into detail on why she believes we are living through a golden age of journalism.
Catch more in this week's episode of The Breaker Pod. Make sure you check us out and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods.