The Washington Post says one-third of its staff across all departments, not just the newsroom, is being laid off.
The troubled Post began implementing large-scale cutbacks on Wednesday, including eliminating its sports department and shrinking the number of journalists it stations overseas. The changes were announced by executive editor Matt Murray in a Zoom meeting with staff.
Staff members in the newsroom were told they would be getting emails with one of two subject lines, announcing that the person’s role has or hasn’t been eliminated. A total number of layoffs was not announced in the call, and the Post wouldn’t say how big its current staffing is.
The newspaper’s books department will be closed, and its Washington-area news department and editing staff will be restructured, Murray told staff members. Its Post Reports podcast will be suspended.
Murray acknowledged that the cuts will be a shock to the system but said the goal is to create a Post that can grow and thrive again.
The moves were expected for several weeks, since word leaked out that the Post had told its sports staffers who had arranged to cover the Winter Olympics in Italy that they would not be going. After it became public, the Post reversed course and said it would be sending a limited staff.
The Post’s troubles stand in contrast to its longtime competitor The New York Times, which has been thriving in recent years, in large part due to investments in ancillary products like its Games site and Wirecutter product recommendations. The Times has doubled its staff over the past decade.
In recent weeks, many Post staff members have been appealing directly to the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos. The newspaper has been bleeding subscribers in part due to decisions made by him — pulling back from an endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris during the 2024 election against Republican Donald Trump and directing a more conservative turn on liberal opinion pages.
The Washington Post Guild, the union for staff members, had appealed to the public to send a message to Bezos: “Enough is enough. Without the staff of The Washington Post, there is no Washington Post.”