The Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff Wednesday, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge that represented a brutal blow to journalism and considered one of its most legendary brands.
The Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, called the move painful but mandatory to place the outlet on stronger footing and to weather changes in technology and user habits. “We will’t be all the pieces to everyone,” Murray said in a note to staff members.
He outlined the changes in a companywide online meeting, and staff members then began getting emails with considered one of two subject lines — telling them their role was or was not eliminated.
Rumors of layoffs had circulated for weeks, ever since word leaked that sports reporters who had expected to travel to Italy for the Winter Olympics wouldn’t be going. But when official word got here down, the dimensions and scale of the cuts were shocking, affecting virtually every department within the newsroom.
“It’s just devastating news for anyone who cares about journalism in America and, in reality, the world,” said Margaret Sullivan, a Columbia University journalism professor and former media columnist on the Post and The Latest York Times.
“The Washington Post has been so vital in so some ways, in news coverage, sports and cultural coverage.”
Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under its current owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, condemned his former boss and called what has happened on the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”
Journalists pleaded with Bezos for help
Bezos, who has been silent in recent weeks amid pleas from Post journalists to step in and forestall the cutbacks, had no immediate comment.
The newspaper has been bleeding subscribers partially because of decisions made by Bezos, including pulling back from an endorsement of Kamala Harris, a Democrat, through the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump, a Republican, and directing a more conservative turn on liberal opinion pages.
A non-public company, the Post doesn’t reveal what number of subscribers it has, but it surely is believed to be roughly 2 million.
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The Post would also not say how many individuals it has on staff, making it not possible to estimate how many individuals were laid off Wednesday. The Post also didn’t outline its funds.
The Post’s troubles stand in contrast to its longtime competitor The Latest York Times, which has been thriving lately, largely because of investments in ancillary products comparable to games and its Wirecutter product recommendations. The Times has doubled its staff over the past decade.
Eliminating the sports section puts an end to a department that has hosted many well-known bylines through the years, amongst them John Feinstein, Michael Wilbon, Shirley Povich, Sally Jenkins and Tony Kornheiser. The Times has also largely ended its sports section, but it surely has replaced the coverage by buying The Athletic and incorporating its work into the Times website.
The Post’s Book World, a destination for book reviews, literary news and creator interviews, has been a dedicated section in its Sunday paper.
A half-century ago, the Post’s coverage of Watergate, led by intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, entered the history books. The Style section under longtime Executive Editor Ben Bradlee hosted a number of the country’s best feature writing.
All Mideast correspondents and editors laid off
Word of specific cuts drifted out through the day, as when Cairo Bureau Chief Claire Parker announced on X that she had been laid off, together with all the newspaper’s Middle East correspondents and editors. “Hard to grasp the logic,” she wrote.
Lizzie Johnson, who wrote last week about covering a war zone in Ukraine without power, heat or running water, said she had been laid off, too.
The paper’s Ukraine bureau chief Siobhan O’Grady said it was “the respect of my life” to serve within the position, suggesting she too had been let go.
Anger and sadness spread across the journalism world.
“The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system,” Ashley Parker, a former Post journalist, wrote in an essay in The Atlantic. But when the paper’s leadership continues its current path, “it might not survive for much longer.”
Fearing for the longer term, Parker was among the many staff members who left the newspaper for other jobs in recent months.
Atlanta paper also makes cuts
Also on Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Structure, which stopped print editions and went all-digital at the tip of last 12 months, announced that it was cutting 50 positions, or roughly 15% of its staff. Half of the eliminated jobs were within the newsroom.
Murray said the Post would think about areas that show authority, distinctiveness and impact, and resonate with readers, including politics, national affairs and security. Even during its recent troubles, the Post has been notably aggressive in coverage of Trump’s changes to the federal workforce.
The corporate’s structure is rooted in a unique era, when the Post was a dominant print product, Murray said in his note to the staff. In areas comparable to video, the outlet hasn’t kept up with consumer habits, he said.
“Significantly, our day by day story output has substantially fallen within the last five years,” he said. “And whilst we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.”
While there are business areas that have to be addressed, Baron pointed a finger of blame at Bezos — for a “gutless” order to kill a presidential endorsement and for remaking an editorial page that stands out just for “moral infirmity” and “sickening” efforts to curry favor with Trump.
“Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was imagined to uphold, fled The Post,” Baron wrote. “In fact, they were driven away, by the a whole lot of hundreds.”
Baron said he was grateful for Bezos’ support when he was editor, noting that the Amazon founder got here under brutal pressure from Trump through the president’s first term.
“He spoke forcefully and eloquently of a free press and The Post’s mission, demonstrating his commitment in concrete terms,” Baron wrote. “He often declared that The Post’s success could be among the many proudest achievements of his life. I wish I detected the identical spirit today. There is no such thing as a sign of it.”