Washington Post Slashes Newsroom — Sports, Books and Foreign Bureaus Gutted in Big Cuts

With input from the New York Times, AlJazeera, the Guardian, and CNN.

The Washington Post told staff Wednesday that roughly one in three jobs are gone — a shock to a newsroom that suddenly looks a lot smaller and a lot different. Management says the move is a painful but necessary “strategic reset.” Many journalists and media veterans call it a gut punch to serious reporting.

A Post spokesperson framed the decision as difficult but forward-looking, saying the cuts would “make the paper more dynamic.” In practice, though, the layoffs hit hard and fast: the sports section is effectively eliminated in its current form, the books desk is shuttered, metro coverage is slashed, and several foreign bureaus have been closed or dramatically reduced. Staffers learned the news via email and were told to stay home while they waited for confirmation of their fate.

Numbers matter. Multiple insiders put the toll at about 30% of total employees and more than 300 of roughly 800 newsroom journalists. That kind of staff reduction doesn’t just trim costs — it reshapes what the paper can cover.

“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” former Post editor Marty Baron said in a blunt statement.

The paper’s union slammed the move, saying a newsroom can’t be hollowed out “without consequences for its credibility, its reach and its future.” The union also floated the idea that maybe Bezos — owner of the Post through Amazon — isn’t the right steward if he won’t bankroll the newsroom the way past owners did.

On social media and inside Slack channels, stunned reporters began posting one-word notices:

“Eliminated,” “I’m out,” “Heartbroken.”

Pranshu Verma, the Post’s New Delhi bureau chief, said simply:

“Heartbroken to share I’ve been laid off.”

Others echoed the sentiment, describing colleagues and bureaus suddenly cut loose.

Executive editor Matt Murray told staff the paper has lost too much money for too long and needs to sharpen focus to survive in a crowded, AI-disrupted media landscape. He described the cuts as a “reset” to concentrate on politics, national affairs, national security, science, health, technology, climate and business — areas the Post sees as most likely to attract and retain readers. Murray also said roughly a dozen overseas bureaus will remain with an emphasis on national-security coverage.

He acknowledged the pain. Laid-off newsroom employees will remain on staff through April 10 without being required to work, and they’ll receive six months of continued health insurance.

This is not the Post’s first round of reductions under owner Jeff Bezos. The paper offered buyouts in late 2023 (about 240 departures) and has trimmed other parts of the company since. But shuttering entire sections — sports and books are pillars of cultural and local reporting — feels different. It signals not just belt-tightening, but a new editorial posture that privileges certain coverage over other goods a broad national paper has traditionally provided.

The cuts come after months of internal strain and public controversy at the paper. Critics point to the Post’s late-2024 decision to pull an editorial endorsement and to editorial shifts that some staffers say were aimed at appeasing power centers. That episode prompted hundreds of thousands of subscription cancellations, which executives say dented revenue and sharpened urgency to find profitability.

Bezos has stayed largely quiet publicly about the newsroom changes. Staffers say they had been sending letters and pleading with him to spare jobs; he did not answer those appeals. Meanwhile, the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, who has been steering a push toward profitability (and experimenting with AI and new product moves), did not address staff directly in public.

Cutting metro reporting and the books desk doesn’t just change a masthead — it removes reporters who cover schools, city halls, local courts, sports leagues and cultural institutions. That kind of coverage is often the first line of accountability in communities across the country; losing it reduces the paper’s capacity to dig into everyday issues that matter to readers’ lives.

The union warned the result will be fewer reporters doing more work, diminishing the Post’s “ability to hold power to account without fear or favor.” Former top editors and many journalists agree: the danger isn’t only financial. It’s civic.

Management says the new structure will be more focused and, ultimately, more sustainable. For staff, though, the immediate scene is grief, anger and a scramble to figure out next steps — some will look for new beats, others will pack up after careers spent building the paper’s reputation.

A protest organized by the union is planned outside the Post’s Washington headquarters. Whether the cuts deliver the financial breathing room executives hope for — or instead implode the newsroom’s capacity and brand — is the big question now.

Either way, this week’s round of layoffs marks a dramatic turning point for the Washington Post. One of America’s most famous newspapers has just lost a chunk of the muscle that made it a national institution — and the ripples will be felt in newsrooms and communities for a long time.