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The Washington Post has been the leading newspaper in the nation's capital for decades. Now it is cutting jobs. NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images/AFP hide caption
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NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images/AFP
The Washington Post moved Wednesday at the behest of owner Jeff Bezos to make deep cuts to every department in the newsroom.
In a newsroom zoom call, Executive Editor Matt Murray called the move "a strategic reset." The changes, he said, were overdue in light of "difficult and even disappointing realities."
With the job cuts, the storied newspaper narrows the scope of its ambitions for the foreseeable future. It is a remarkable reversal for a vital pillar of American journalism that had looked to Bezos — one of the wealthiest people on Earth — as a champion and a financial savior.
Murray said the Post will shutter its sports desk, while keeping some sports writers who will write feature stories. It will likewise close its Books section and suspend the signature podcast Post Reports. The international desk will shrink dramatically. Murray said the decisions did not reflect the quality of the work
The Metro section will be restructured, ensuring a "healthy presence for local subscribers," he said. According to a Metro staffer who was just laid off, there will be about a dozen people left on the desk. That's down from more than 40.
The Post, which is privately held by Bezos, declined through a spokesperson to confirm basic data about its newsroom, subscriptions and other financial data for this article. Bezos has so far remained silent throughout the process.
For the past 20 years, the paper has defined itself as "For and About Washington." Former controlling owner Don Graham and former Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. reveled in news stories and investigative pieces about local crime, politics, school boards, traffic, weather, sports. It has had a robust report about the arts and restaurant scene.
But the paper also had an understanding that a sophisticated audience — including politicians, foreign diplomats and businesses with international interests — also relied on the paper's coverage of matters abroad.
Under Marty Baron, whom Bezos inherited as executive editor, the paper flourished, flexing journalistic muscle in accountability reporting on President Trump's first term in office.
It reaped rewards from readers too, exceeding 3 million paying subscribers. It is now far below that level, according to a person at the paper with knowledge. (The person spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fears of being fired for speaking to the press.)
Now the Post appears poised to become primarily a federal paper, seeking to appeal almost exclusively for readers interested in issues about the U.S. government, with an emphasis on national security and American politics.
Several former editors said it appeared the paper was seeking to compete more with such specialized publications as Politico and Punchbowl rather than The New York Times. And numerous Post reporters and editors blamed their chief executives under Bezos — first Fred Ryan, a former Politico CEO — and then publisher and CEO Will Lewis, the former chief executive of the Wall Street Journal and a top executive at the British Telegraph and at Rupert Murdoch's London newspaper division.
"There's no question you can produce a world-class news report with fewer people. But the how and why matter. What's the strategy?" says former Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli. "The Post occupies a singular place in American journalism. It needs visionary and independent stewardship that is equal to its journalism, worthy of its promise and necessary to meet this important moment in history."
Lewis charmed the newsroom upon his arrival in the winter of 2024 but that curdled as news reports focused on episodes of allegations of wrongdoing during his British newspaper days.
Seniors editors at the paper told colleagues that they had been cut out of the process of helping to design the strategy for the restructured Post. Executive Editor Murray, who previously held the same job at the Wall Street Journal under Lewis, pushed back against even more extreme cuts, they said. NPR spoke to a dozen current and former Post staffers for this article. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing concerns of job security.)
In June 2024, Lewis told his colleagues at an all-staff meeting that not enough of the public wanted to read their reporting. He said the paper had lost $177 million over two years.
Lewis has not held a town hall with his staff since. Nor, despite a flurry of futuristic sounding initiatives, ranging from the use of artificial intelligence to craft individual news roundups and a "third newsroom" to come up with experimental coverage, have those losses in the tens of millions of dollars abated. And Lewis has not, until now, articulated his strategy for the paper's future. Cuts had been anticipated in December but put off, creating a frenzy within the newsroom.
Lewis did not participate in the discussion with staff on Wednesday.
In recent weeks, scores of journalists wrote letters to Bezos to preserve the Post. He has a personal wealth estimated at $261 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
But his thinking about the paper has evolved since he bought it in 2013 from the Graham family for $250 million. He spoke then about the paper as a civic investment, although one for which he wanted innovation to drive financial sustainability.
He poured money into it: the newsroom grew by about 85% at its peak. Some former Post executives say a stripped down newsroom from those heights could easily still dominate audiences in greater Washington, D.C.
