Washington Post to cut one-third of staff in sweeping layoffs

By Newsflash and Agencies

The Washington Post has revealed plans to cut roughly one-third of its workforce, a sweeping downsizing that will significantly reduce the newspaper’s coverage of sports and international affairs.

The reductions, disclosed on Wednesday, will affect staff across multiple divisions, with particularly heavy losses in the newsroom’s sports, metro and foreign desks.

The move represents the latest period of turbulence for the prominent American publication, which is owned by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Executive editor Matt Murray said the restructuring was intended to create “stability.” However, the decision drew swift backlash from employees and several former top editors, one of whom labelled it among the “darkest days in the history of” the renowned outlet.

Leadership defends painful cuts

“Today’s news is painful. These are difficult actions,” Murray wrote in a message to employees on Wednesday.

“If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition,” he added.

Explaining the rationale behind the layoffs, Murray said the publication’s digital readership had dropped sharply over the past three years during the rapid rise of artificial intelligence tools, leaving the organisation “too rooted in a different era.”

“Even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience,” he noted.

In the days leading up to the announcement, foreign correspondents and local journalists had appealed directly to Bezos, urging him to safeguard newsroom jobs.

“Continuing to eliminate workers only stands to weaken the newspaper, drive away readers and undercut The Post’s mission,” the Washington Post Guild said in a statement released Wednesday.

Journalists react with anger

Reporters who lost their jobs quickly took to social media, many expressing outrage over the decision to scale back global reporting.

The newspaper’s former Cairo bureau chief said she had been dismissed along with the “entire roster” of Middle East correspondents and editors. A journalist stationed in Ukraine wrote that she had lost her position “in the middle of a warzone.”

Another staffer said that much of the metro desk, which focuses on coverage in the Washington, DC area, had also been let go.

Marty Baron, who led The Post’s newsroom until stepping down in 2021, described the moment as “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”

He recalled that Bezos, who purchased the paper for $250 million in 2013, had spoken “forcefully and eloquently of a free press” during Baron’s tenure, which included Donald Trump’s first term as US president.

“But,” Baron added, “I wish I detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it.”

A spokesperson for The Post said the measures were “designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus.”

Financial struggles and editorial controversies

The layoffs are the latest in a string of staff reductions and buyout offers across various departments in recent years, as the newspaper grapples with financial pressure and reader backlash over some editorial choices.

The publication lost tens of thousands of subscribers soon after announcing, just before the 2024 US presidential election, that it would not endorse any candidate — a break from long-standing practice and a decision made by owner Jeff Bezos.

That move ended a tradition stretching back decades, as the paper had endorsed a presidential hopeful in most elections since the 1970s, all of them Democrats.

Bezos’ subsequent decision last year to steer the opinion section toward a focus on “personal liberties and free markets” led to the resignation of that section’s editor.

The Post’s declining subscriber numbers and financial difficulties contrast sharply with the fortunes of The New York Times, which said on Wednesday that it had gained about 450,000 digital-only subscribers during the final quarter of 2025.