The Washington Post is flailing. The once venerated newspaper is contending with plummeting readership and significant profit losses. A look at the Post’s coverage of the Israel-Islamist conflict offers a clue as to why.
As CAMERA has noted, the past few years have found the Washington Post being the center of the story. And it’s often for all of the wrong reasons.
For example, a March 1, 2025 story in the Atlantic was entitled, “The Washington Post is dying a death of despair.” Writer George Packer noted that “the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has shed a large part of the paper’s workforce, asserted control over the management of its newsroom, spiked a presidential endorsement for the first time in the paper’s history, and driven out some of its best writers and editors.” The net result, Packer claimed, was that the newspaper was “dying not in darkness but by the light of noon, and by its own hand.”
Packer is correct to note that the Post is dying; its death rattle is hard to miss. But his timeline is incorrect.
The restructuring of the Post’s newsroom is itself a response to the publication’s failing. Indeed, the Washington Post has experienced declining readership for years. In 2023, for example, the paper lost $77 million dollars. And in 2024—an election year during which the publication should have experienced higher than usual traffic—the Post did one better, with estimated losses in excess of $100 million dollars. Small wonder that its owner is pushing for reform. Bezos can’t be expected to subsidize failure forever. The Washington Post is increasingly unprofitable. And the reason is simple: the Washington Post is unreadable. This is hardly a secret, although some opponents of reform continue to pretend otherwise.
In 2024, Will Lewis, the Washington Post’s publisher, spoke with staff. “We are losing large amounts of money,” Lewis reportedly said. “Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.” Lewis warned that the paper must take “decisive, urgent action to set us on a different path.” Among other things, he recommended that the Post set up a “third newsroom” to “give millions of Americans—who feel that traditional news is not for them but still want to be kept informed—compelling, exciting and accurate news where they are and in the style that they want [emphasis added].”
According to Lewis, the Post’s problem was largely one of style, not necessarily substance. In short: in his view, the Post merely has a messaging problem. But as with Packer, this is an incorrect diagnosis and the treatment that follows from it won’t save the patient.
However, Lewis was right to note the obvious: the Post is failing. He cited facts but—not for the first time—Post employees were unwilling to hear them.
In response to projected reforms aimed at staunching the bleeding, many Post staffers acted like maladjusted adolescents instead of professional journalists. The newspaper’s then editor in chief, Sally Buzbee, who had overseen a period in which one of America’s most storied papers lost hundreds of millions of dollars, resigned in lieu of taking another position with the paper. She also allegedly helped orchestrate a whisper campaign against those tasked with spearheading reforms—receiving help from editors at the Post’s foreign desk, among others, as the journalist Dylan Byers documented in a June 2024 article at Puck.
The internal revolt at the Post highlighted a degree of entitlement among many Post staffers—an entitlement that would continue to rear its ugly head throughout the coming year.
Yet, Lewis was right. The Washington Post is increasingly unreadable. But its unreadable because, among other things, it’s not trusted. And for good reason.
Americans’ faith in media is at an all-time low. As Gallup noted in February 2025: “trust in mass media is at its lowest point in more than five decades.” Further, “confidence in news has fallen more than confidence in other institutions.” Americans, Gallup observed in its polling, increasingly view the mass media as unreliable and overly partisan. And polling indicates that this is a trend that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
The Washington Post—arguably more than any other legacy print outlet—neatly embodies this trend. The newspaper has wantonly flogged numerous conspiracy theories that fit its ideological and partisan needs. And it has been unrepentant about doing so, refusing to return Pulitzer Prizes for reporting that has subsequently been thoroughly discredited.
The Post’s coverage of the Israel-Islamist conflict and related issues, including antisemitism and terrorism, showcases a paper that prioritizes narrative and ideology over facts and ethics.
As CAMERA has documented, the Post has continued to regurgitate casualty statistics and statements supplied by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group with a history of both lying and murder. Yet, the Post considers Hamas a reliable source. In so doing, it incentivizes the terror group’s strategy of using civilians as human shields. CAMERA has frequently reached out to Post staff—even running a mobile billboard campaign to shame the paper—but the Post has been unmoved.
Unsurprisingly, the Post’s decision to trust Hamas has come at the expense of trustworthy reporting.
The Post’s faith in Hamas was on full display in a May 27, 2024 article entitled, “Israeli strikes on Rafah safe zone kill at least 35, Gaza officials say.” Those “officials” are Hamas. And unsurprisingly they lied.
The dispatch, by Rachel Pannett with contributions from Niha Masih and Hajar Harb, claimed that Israeli strikes hit a “makeshift camp within Block 2371, an area that was designated a humanitarian safe zone by Israeli officials on May 22, according to Muhammad Abu Hani, a civil defense official in the Gaza Strip.” This served as the entire basis for the Post’s story and headline.
But Muhammad Abu Hani isn’t merely a “civil defense official in the Gaza Strip.” He’s Hamas. And it turns out that trusting claims made by Hamas makes for remarkably poor “journalism.” The entire story came undone within hours of its being filed.
As IDF Lt. Colonel Peter Lerner noted on X on May 27, the Israeli strike “never took place in a designated humanitarian zone.” Lerner pointed out that an aerial photograph of the strike compared to the humanitarian zone showed as much. Further, he pointed out that Hani, a “Hamas official,” seemed to be the chief source for the story. The Washington Post “should’ve checked this verifiable quote.” But instead, the newspaper “willingly quoted as fact Hamas lies about a strike that DIDN’T occur in the humanitarian zone.”
The Post could have waited for an investigation. And at the very least it could have properly identified Hani or put his comments in quotes. Instead, the newspaper effectively served as part of a disinformation campaign from a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Within hours, the Post’s story came apart. But instead of owning up to its mistake and learning from it, the newspaper did a very revealing thing: they deleted the entire story.
The Post didn’t issue a public retraction or apology. Nor did it append a correction. Both are standard practice in journalism. Instead, it just deleted the entire article and pretended it never existed.
As the Post’s growing number of critics have noted, the Post’s penchant for trusting terrorists has resulted in a slew of stories that have been discredited and are themselves discrediting. The Post has stood at the forefront of refashioning antisemitic blood libels for the modern era, pushing claims that that Jewish state wantonly murders babies and destroys hospitals for no reason—and even insinuating that terrorists didn’t rape Israeli women on October 7th. Time and again, the Washington Post has put on a shameful display, utterly devoid of ethics and standards. There is no bottom, no depth to which it will not sink.
The Washington Post has even contradicted its own prior reporting. During the latest war between Israel and Iranian proxies, the newspaper has presented Hamas’s to exploit hospitals as merely an “Israeli claim.” Time and again, the Washington Post has cast doubt on the idea that Hamas uses hospitals as bases. But in 2014, the Post itself noted that Al-Shifa hospital “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Oh.
Indeed, evidence that Hamas uses hospitals has long been in the public domain. Hamas operatives themselves have even admitted it, and footage and photographic evidence of their presence at these facilities has also long been available. The Washington Post simply chose to ignore this bevy of evidence. And the reason is simple: the Post is a pro-Hamas outlet. To be sure, that is an incendiary claim. But it’s objectively true. Why else would it serve as a mouthpiece for Hamas while, if implicitly justifying and minimizing the terror group’s actions? Once or twice is a mistake. But there’s a clear pattern here. Why, it might be asked, does the Washington Post trust Hamas? The unpleasant—but at this point undeniable— answer is because it wants to. Some of its reporters even like what Hamas is doing, saying as much on their social media when they think that no one is looking.
The newspaper has employed and paid reporters and columnists who act as Hamas apologists—even cheerleaders. In early March 2025, Middle East analyst Eitan Fischberger revealed that the Post’s Cairo bureau chief, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, “expressed alignment with Hamas and Hezbollah, according to translated posts first written in Arabic,” the Jewish Insider reported. Echoing the rhetoric of these terrorist organizations and their supporters, Mahfouz declared that she was “always and forever with the resistance as long as it is against the Zionist entity.” In another social media post, Mahfouz clarified that she was “with the resistance always and forever” and with Hamas and Hezbollah if their weapons are against Israel and not against Arabs like them.” Mahfouz made some of these troubling posts before she was hired by the Washington Post in 2016. Perhaps the newspaper viewed them as recommendations. Indeed, since being hired by the Post, her social media posts have stated that the world’s sole Jewish state is “illegal” and thus doesn’t have the right to exist. She has even compared Israel to Nazis—a staple of antisemitic rhetoric. Mahfouz has written no fewer than 48 articles about Israel, all of them authored by someone who doesn’t think the country has a right to exist and who cheers Hamas using “weapons against Israel.” For its part, the Post has claimed that it is “looking into the matter.” Sure.
But Mahfouz isn’t alone. As CAMERA revealed in an April 1, 2024 expose (“Washington Post Contributor Celebrates October 7 Massacre”), contributor Hajar Harb cheered the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. On her social media posts, Harb called the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust “beautiful.” Harb mocked the kidnapping of Yafa Adar, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother. Harb responded to footage of Adar being kidnapped by writing “See this place ma’am? Allah willing, you’ll remain inside with us for a while.” On Harb’s Facebook profile she lampooned Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother who was kidnapped and brought into Gaza along with her two young children, Ariel and baby Kfir. Shiri and her babies were murdered by Hamas, their desecrated bodies later paraded in a ceremony filmed by an Al Jazeera journalist named Tamer Meshal. As CAMERA and others have documented, the Post has become a haven for dozens of Al Jazeera alumni; with current trends perhaps Meshal’s name will one day be on the newspaper’s masthead. In her posts, Harb had only mockery for the Bibas family, writing “[this is] your home and your spot, you and your children.”
CAMERA sent the newspaper evidence of Harb’s comments, including screenshots. Other newspapers covered the story, citing CAMERA’s work. But a year later, the Washington Post has continued to file dispatches from Harb and, one presumes, pay her. Indeed, as noted above, her byline appeared on the May 2024 story echoing Hamas claims that the paper later quietly erased. Harb’s byline even recently appeared on a March 2025 article (“Israeli strikes kill eight aid workers in Gaza, British charity says”) which portrays Israel as wantonly murdering aid workers—another blood libel reborn, casting the Jewish state as uniquely evil. Simultaneously, the Post filed a dispatch that inaccurately asserted that Israel has ‘produced no evidence asserting that Hamas is diverting humanitarian aid.’ Yet, such evidence, including footage, has long been in the public domain.
Harb and Mahfouz have also shared bylines with Claire Parker, a Post bureau chief like Mahfouz. Parker has called terrorism merely “armed resistance” and portrayed the October 7 2023 massacre as a response to Israel “stoking tensions” at al-Aqsa Mosque. But as CAMERA has highlighted, Palestinian terrorist groups have long used the false claim that Jews seek to damage or destroy the mosque to incite anti-Jewish violence. More to the point, evidence indicates that the October 7 massacre—called “Al-Aqsa Flood” by Hamas—took years to plan and was massive in both scope and ambition. This was obvious within hours of the attack. Of course, when one confuses anti-Israel stenography with journalism the obvious gets lost pretty quickly.
Another Post employee who frequently covers the Middle East, Louisa Loveluck, offered her “congratulations” on social media to Lalia Al-Arian, an executive producer for Al Jazeera and the daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who was deported after pleading guilty to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that took part in the October 7 massacre. The younger Al-Arian made a film that portrayed Israel’s military response to the terrorist attack as a “genocide,” and, unsurprisingly, echoed claims from anti-Israel terror groups. Loveluck called the film “important,” even using an emoji for a broken heart to illustrate her solidarity with the daughter of a deported and virulently antisemitic terrorist. But this is par for the course.
Numerous other Post employees, including columnists, have unabashedly shown their penchant for attacking Israel while covering for Hamas’s crimes. And several have remained unapologetic about doing so. Indeed, the bias is seemingly everywhere.
The Post has run puff pieces on “journalists” like Anas Baba, who, as Eitan Fischberger pointed out, “explicitly support Palestinian terrorism.” And in a review of the documentary film October 8, which explores the increase in antisemitism after the Hamas-led attack, the Post’s Michael Sullivan indulges in victim blaming, claiming that filmmakers could have made “greater effort…to acknowledge — or at least to interrogate — the role of the Israeli government and its military, over many years, in creating a fertile soil for Palestinian anger.” Of course, as CAMERA has noted, blaming Jews for the violence perpetrated against them is a staple of antisemitism. And moreover, anti-Jewish violence, including terrorism, predates the existence of Israel, the Israeli military, even Palestinian nationalism, stretching back more than a hundred years. Those familiar with the history of the conflict are aware of the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, for example, or the 1929 Hebron massacre. But it seems that people with such deep and essential knowledge do not work at the Washington Post.
Recently, the Washington Post has been riven with mass resignations, layoffs, and buyouts, as well as public statements from former top newspaper officials, including former executive editor Marty Baron and former managing editor Cameron Barr. Many have taken issue with the reforms and direction pushed by Bezos and others who seek to right a ship that long ago hit the iceberg. But the evidence is clear: the Post’s failings are longstanding, and they are systemic. The Post is sinking, its credibility thoroughly destroyed. Not a few close observers—those who value truth and integrity in journalism—will probably think to themselves “good riddance” and do their level best to refrain from slow clapping as the ship goes under.