‘Darkest days’: Washington Post announces sweeping, ‘difficult’ layoffs amid financial distress
The Washington Post, whose slogan is “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” announced sweeping layoffs on Wednesday, after employees were told not to come to work by executive editor Matt Murray, but learn their fate on a morning Zoom call.
Axios reports “the paper plans to lay off a significant portion of its staff, including many from its nearly 150-year-old newsroom.”
“The cuts represent the most drastic cost-saving measure the Post has implemented since being taken over by a new management team in early 2024.”
NBC News reports: “According to a source familiar with the situation, the layoffs will primarily affect sports, books and the company’s podcast unit. The metro desk will also be restructured. The Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos since 2013, previously laid off about 4% of its staff roughly a year ago, though those cuts did not affect the newsroom.”
The Post’s daily podcast called “Post Reports” is also being deleted, a source told Axios.
A spokesperson for the paper said: “The Washington Post is taking a number of difficult but decisive actions today for our future, in what amounts to a significant restructuring across the company.”
“These steps are designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus on delivering the distinctive journalism that sets The Post apart and, most importantly, engages our customers.”
Jeff Stein, chief economics correspondent for the Post, indicated: “This is a tragic day for American journalism, the city of Washington, and the country as a whole. I’m grieving for reporters I love and whose work upheld the truest and most noble callings of the profession. … They are being punished for mistakes they did not cause.”
Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron said the announcement “ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
The Washington Post Guild, which represents hundreds of employees in the newsroom, said, “These layoffs are not inevitable. A newsroom cannot be hollowed out without consequences of its credibility, its reach and its future.”
— Washington Post Guild (@PostGuild) February 4, 2026
“In just the last three years, the Post’s workforce has shrunk by roughly 400 people. Continuing to eliminate workers only stands to weaken the newspaper, drive away readers and undercut The Post’s mission: to hold power to account without fear or factor and provide critical information for communities across the region, country and world.”
Just this week, with the box-office success of the “Melania” documentary about the first lady, Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse wrote: “There is a controversial new Amazon documentary about Melania Trump released this weekend and every single review I’ve read has been terrible, but babe, if you suspect I have come here today to trash a movie about the wife of a notoriously thin-skinned, anti-journalist president, which was bankrolled by the company owned by the man who also pays my salary – NOT TODAY, SATAN. Do you think I’m a moron? (Don’t answer that.) This house is clean.”
Column by Monica Hesse: First lady Melania Trump has an impenetrable quality that makes it impossible to gauge what she’s actually thinking.
Her new documentary, “Melania,” promised to answer our questions. However, it did not. https://t.co/qvEjV0sckk
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 31, 2026
Outback founder Clay Travis was asked about Hesse’s comment, and told Fox News: “I think the Washington Post is actually starting to get somewhat sane. I went to college in D.C. I used to read that newspaper before it lost its mind, and it feels to me like they have made some improvements there. I would suggest maybe pulling ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ off the masthead, but that’s just me.”
Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews