According to information published on Wednesday, the Washington Post is undergoing significant layoffs affecting various divisions, particularly the sports and local news departments, as well as international correspondents, as reported by the BBC.
WP, one of the oldest and most authoritative American publications, was acquired by Jeff Bezos in 2013 for $250 million. With the start of Donald Trump's presidency in 2017, the newspaper began using the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."
Matt Murray, the executive editor, noted that these measures are necessary to ensure the publication's stability.
“Today’s news is hard to take. These are difficult decisions,” Murray said in his address to the team. “To not just survive, but to grow, we must rethink our journalism and business model, implementing new ambitions.”
However, employees and some former leaders of the publication have expressed sharp criticism of these decisions.
Marty Baron, who served as editor-in-chief until 2021, described what is happening as “one of the darkest days in the history of one of the greatest news organizations in the world.”
Murray explained that the layoffs are related to a sharp decline in the publication's internet traffic over the past three years amid the rapid development of artificial intelligence.
“We too often focus on one viewpoint — for a specific audience,” he added, noting that the Washington Post will now focus on politics, national security, investigations, as well as health and wellness issues.
Before the announcement of the layoffs, foreign correspondents and local journalists appealed to Bezos to save their jobs.
Immediately after the layoffs, journalists began sharing their opinions on social media, many expressing dissatisfaction with the decision to cut international coverage.
A former head of the Cairo bureau reported that she was laid off along with “the entire staff” responsible for covering events in the Middle East. A correspondent who worked in Ukraine noted that his dismissal occurred “in the midst of the war.”
It also became known that most employees of the Metro department, responsible for events in Washington and the suburbs, lost their jobs.
Official information about the number of employees being laid off has not yet been disclosed. However, according to two sources from the New York Times, the Washington Post may cut about 30% of its staff, including commercial divisions. Of the 800 journalists, more than 300 may be laid off, according to the NYT.
The BBC sent a request to the Washington Post for comment on the scale of the layoffs.
Marty Baron reminded that Jeff Bezos, who bought the newspaper for $250 million in 2013, “actively advocated for press freedom” during the time Baron led the editorial team, including during Donald Trump's first term.
“But now,” Baron added, “I don’t see that spirit. It’s lacking.”
Disappointed Subscribers
These layoffs are another step in a series of previous cuts and incentives for voluntary departures of employees that have occurred across various divisions of the Washington Post amid criticism of a number of editorial decisions.
The newspaper's workers' union, the Washington Post Guild, stated: “The ongoing layoffs only weaken the paper, alienate readers, and undermine the Post's mission.”
After the newspaper announced its decision not to support any candidate in the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential elections, it lost tens of thousands of subscribers. This decision was made by the publication's owner, Jeff Bezos.
This move broke a long-standing tradition: since the 1970s, the newspaper has always supported a candidate from the Democratic Party in presidential elections.
Bezos's decision last year to shift the direction of opinion columns to topics of “personal freedoms and free markets” led to the resignation of the editor of that section.
The financial difficulties of the Washington Post and the decline in subscriber numbers sharply contrast with the successes of the New York Times, which announced on Wednesday that it had gained about 450,000 new subscribers to its online version in just the last quarter of 2025.
