.webp)
Business
Washington
Post cuts a third of its staff in a blow to a legendary news brand
By DAVID BAUDER
Updated
3:33 AM GMT+1, February 5, 2026
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 one of its most
legendary brands.
The
Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, called the move painful but necessary to
put the outlet on stronger footing and to weather changes in technology and
user habits. “We can’t be everything 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 one of two subject lines — telling them their role
was or was not eliminated.
One
Franklin Square, home of the Washington Post newspaper in downtown Washington,
Wednesday, February. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
One
Franklin Square, home of the Washington Post newspaper in downtown Washington,
Wednesday, February. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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 would not be going.
But when official word came down, the size and scale of the cuts were shocking,
affecting virtually every department in the newsroom.
“It’s
just devastating news for anyone who cares about journalism in America and, in
fact, the world,” said Margaret Sullivan, a Columbia University journalism
professor and former media columnist at the Post and The New York Times. “The
Washington Post has been so important in so many 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 at the newspaper “a case
study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”
One
Franklin Square, home of the Washington Post newspaper in downtown Washington,
Wednesday, February. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
One
Franklin Square, home of the Washington Post newspaper in downtown Washington,
Wednesday, February. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
And
former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the layoffs “part of a broader
reprehensible pattern in which corporate decisions are hollowing out newsrooms
across the country.”
In an
speech to members of the Washington Press Club Foundation, Pelosi said: “A free
press cannot fulfill its mission if it is starved of the resources it needs to
survive. And when the newsrooms are weakened, our republic is weakened.”
Journalists
pleaded with Bezos for help
Bezos,
who has been silent in recent weeks amid pleas from Post journalists to step in
and prevent the cutbacks, had no immediate comment.
The
newspaper has been bleeding subscribers in part due to decisions made by Bezos,
including pulling back from an endorsement of Kamala Harris, a Democrat, during
the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump, a Republican, and
directing a more conservative turn on liberal opinion pages.
A private
company, the Post does not reveal how many subscribers it has, but it is
believed to be roughly 2 million. The Post would also not say how many people
it has on staff, making it impossible to estimate how many people were laid off
Wednesday. The Post also did not outline its finances.
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 such as 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, among them John Feinstein, Michael Wilbon, Shirley
Povich, Sally Jenkins and Tony Kornheiser. The Times has also largely ended its
sports section, but it 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 author
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 some of the country’s best
feature writing.
All
Mideast correspondents and editors laid off
Word of
specific cuts drifted out during the day, as when Cairo Bureau Chief Claire
Parker announced on X that she had been laid off, along with all of the
newspaper’s Middle East correspondents and editors. “Hard to understand 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.
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 if the paper’s leadership continues its current path, “it may not
survive much longer.”
Fearing
for the future, Parker was among the staff members who left the newspaper for
other jobs in recent months.
Atlanta
paper also makes cuts
Also on
Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which stopped print editions and
went all-digital at the end of last year, announced that it was cutting 50
positions, or roughly 15% of its staff. Half of the eliminated jobs were in the
newsroom.
Murray
said the Post would concentrate on areas that demonstrate 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
company’s structure is rooted in a different era, when the Post was a dominant
print product, Murray said in his note to the staff. In areas such as video,
the outlet hasn’t kept up with consumer habits, he said.
“Significantly,
our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years,” he
said. “And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one
perspective, for one slice of the audience.”
While
there are business areas that need 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 only 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
supposed to uphold, fled The Post,” Baron wrote. “In truth, they were driven
away, by the hundreds of thousands.”
Baron
said he was grateful for Bezos’ support when he was editor, noting that the
Amazon founder came under brutal pressure from Trump during 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 would be among the proudest achievements of his life. I wish I
detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it.”
___
David
Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP.
Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and
https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
DAVID
BAUDER
Bauder is
the AP’s national media writer, covering the intersection of news, politics and
entertainment. He is based in New York.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário