It's Thursday, February 5th, 2026.

From Peachfish Productions, it's The Gist.

I'm Mike Peska.

And I like almost to every other decent person in the world of journalism,

am gutted by the gutting of the Washington Post.

I subscribe to the Post, it's not even a question.

There are three publications I couldn't do this job

without paid subscriptions to, the Times, the Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg's right

behind. I also have 10 other paid subscriptions because I am a maniac, and the gist list beckons

my past good, that substack.com. But I cycle through the Philly Inquirer, the LA Times, or the Chicago

Tribune, or now the Omaha World Herald these days, but I could never cycle through or let a

subscription lay fallow to a paper like The Washington Post, a great newspaper, once greater

than it is now, but still consistently delivering. I don't know.

Maybe tomorrow it won't.

Today on The Daily, which is the New York Times dominant flagship podcast, oh, by the way,

an entity that the Washington Post has never come close to replicating, which is just one

small part of the reason they're declining.

Eric Wemple, very good media reporter, who once reported for The Washington Post, but now works for the New York Times, gave this analysis of recent post glory in reporting about Donald Trump.

They were delivering scoops about his philanthropic organizations, about his business operations, and then into his administration

first year. For example, the New York Times and the Washington Post shared a Pulitzer Public Service

prize for coverage of the Trump administration's approach to Russia. And if you want to know

how badly that offended Mr. Trump, you can just look at the lawsuit that he filed against the Pulitzer Board a few years back.

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