Amazon billionaire slashes Washington Post staff
The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is set to cut a third of its staff across all departments.
The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has announced major job cuts – saying a third of its staff across its newsroom and other departments will be laid off.
The troubled US newspaper began implementing large-scale cutbacks on Wednesday (local time), including eliminating its sports department and reducing the number of journalists it stations overseas.
The changes were announced by executive editor Matt Murray in a Zoom meeting with staff.
The cuts are a significant blow at The Post, which is known for for its Watergate revelations and most recently for aggressive coverage of US President Donald Trump’s cutbacks to the federal workforce, and for journalism in general.
Employees in the newsroom were told they would get emails with one of two subject lines, revealing whether their role would or would not continue.
You might like
A Post representative confirmed that one-third of the staff would be cut, without saying how many total employees the newspaper has.
The newspaper’s entire books department will close and its Washington DC-area news department and editing staff will be restructured, Murray told staff members.
Its Post Reports podcast will be suspended.
Murray acknowledged that the cuts would be a shock but said the goal is to create a newspaper that could grow and thrive again.
Stay informed, daily
“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,” a Post spokesperson said.
“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.”
The Post, which is a private company and was bought by Bezos in 2013, does not reveal how many subscribers it has, although it is believed to be about two million.
The moves had been expected for several weeks, since word leaked out that The Post had told its sports staffers who had arranged to cover the Winter Olympics in Italy that they would not be going.
After that became public, The Post reversed course and said it would send a limited staff.
The Post‘s troubles stand in contrast to its long-time competitor The New York Times, which has thrived in recent years, in large part due to investments in ancillary products like its Games site and Wirecutter product recommendations.
The Times has doubled its staff over the past decade.
-with AAP
