WASHINGTON: The Washington Post, owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, began widespread layoffs on Wednesday that will drastically shrink the size of the storied newspaper and affect all departments, according to a recording of a company-wide call shared with Reuters.
The cuts will impact a third of all employees, according to the newspaper’s spokesperson. The newsroom is losing “hundreds” of staffers, according to a spokesperson for the Washington-Baltimore News Guild union, which represents Post employees.
Executive Editor Matt Murray informed the staff of the reductions, which will impact the international, editing, metro and sports desks, and come just days after the newspaper, founded in 1877, scaled back its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics amid mounting financial losses.
“For too long, we’ve operated with a structure that’s too rooted in the days when we were a quasi-monopoly local newspaper,” Murray said on the call, adding that “we need a new way forward and a sounder foundation.”
The Washington Post is undergoing wrenching changes to readership and revenue. Other large city daily newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times, are struggling as consumers turn to social media for their main source of news.
One Post reporter, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the newly announced layoffs a “bloodbath.”
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