{"id":455621,"date":"2026-02-05T14:31:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455621\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T14:31:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T14:31:21","slug":"washington-post-layoffs-include-entire-ukraine-middle-east-bureaus-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455621\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post layoffs include entire Ukraine, Middle East bureaus – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Washington\u00a0Post<\/a>\u00a0laid off one-third of its staff Wednesday, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge that represented a brutal\u00a0blow to journalism\u00a0and one of its most legendary brands.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s executive editor, Matt Murray, called the move painful but necessary to put the outlet on stronger footing and to weather changes in technology and user habits. \u201cWe can\u2019t be everything to everyone,\u201d Murray said in a note to staff members.<\/p>\n

He outlined the changes in a companywide online meeting, and staff members then began getting emails with one of two subject lines \u2014 telling them their role was or was not eliminated.<\/p>\n

Rumors\u00a0of layoffs\u00a0had circulated for weeks, ever since word leaked that sports reporters who had expected to travel to Italy for\u00a0the Winter Olympics\u00a0would not be going. But when official word came down, the size and scale of the cuts were shocking, affecting virtually every department in the newsroom.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s just devastating news for anyone who cares about journalism in America and, in fact, the world,\u201d said Margaret Sullivan, a Columbia University journalism professor and former media columnist at the\u00a0Post\u00a0and The New York Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0Washington\u00a0Post\u00a0has been so important in so many ways, in news coverage, sports and cultural coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin Baron, the Post\u2019s first editor under its current owner,\u00a0billionaire Jeff Bezos, condemned his former boss and called what has happened at the newspaper \u201ca case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tJournalists pleaded with Bezos for help\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Bezos, who has been silent in recent weeks amid pleas from\u00a0Post\u00a0journalists to step in and prevent the cutbacks, had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n

The newspaper has been bleeding subscribers in part due to decisions made by Bezos, including\u00a0pulling back from an endorsement\u00a0of Kamala Harris, a Democrat, during the 2024 presidential election against Donald Trump, a Republican, and directing\u00a0a more conservative turn\u00a0on\u00a0liberal opinion pages.<\/p>\n

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A private company, the\u00a0Post\u00a0does not reveal how many subscribers it has, but it is believed to be roughly 2 million.<\/p>\n

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The\u00a0Post\u00a0would also not say how many people it has on staff, making it impossible to estimate how many people were laid off Wednesday. The\u00a0Post\u00a0also did not outline its finances.<\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s troubles stand in contrast to its longtime competitor The New York Times, which has been thriving in recent years, in large part due to investments in ancillary products such as games and its Wirecutter product recommendations. The Times has\u00a0doubled its staff\u00a0over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Eliminating the sports section puts an end to a department that has hosted many well-known bylines through the years, among them John Feinstein, Michael Wilbon, Shirley Povich, Sally Jenkins and Tony Kornheiser. The Times has also largely ended its sports section, but it has replaced the coverage by buying The Athletic and incorporating its work into the Times website.<\/p>\n

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The Post\u2019s Book World, a destination for book reviews, literary news and author interviews, has been a dedicated section in its Sunday paper.<\/p>\n

A half-century ago, the Post\u2019s coverage of Watergate, led by intrepid reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, entered the history books. The Style section under longtime Executive Editor Ben Bradlee hosted some of the country\u2019s best feature writing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tAll Mideast correspondents and editors laid off\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Word of specific cuts drifted out during the day, as when Cairo Bureau Chief Claire Parker announced on X that she had been laid off, along with all of the newspaper\u2019s Middle East correspondents and editors. \u201cHard to understand the logic,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

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Lizzie Johnson, who wrote last week about covering a war zone in Ukraine without power, heat or running water, said she had been laid off, too.<\/p>\n

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The paper\u2019s Ukraine bureau chief Siobhan O\u2019Grady said it was \u201cthe honor of my life\u201d to serve in the position, suggesting she too had been let go.<\/p>\n

Anger and sadness spread across the journalism world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0Post\u00a0has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system,\u201d Ashley Parker, a former\u00a0Post\u00a0journalist, wrote in an essay in The Atlantic. But if the paper\u2019s leadership continues its current path, \u201cit may not survive much longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fearing for the future, Parker was among the staff members who left the newspaper for other jobs in recent months.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tAtlanta paper also makes cuts\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Also on Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which stopped print editions and went all-digital at the end of last year, announced that it was cutting 50 positions, or roughly 15% of its staff. Half of the eliminated jobs were in the newsroom.<\/p>\n

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Murray said the\u00a0Post\u00a0would concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness and impact, and resonate with readers, including politics, national affairs and security. Even during its recent troubles, the\u00a0Post\u00a0has been\u00a0notably aggressive\u00a0in\u00a0coverage of Trump\u2019s changes\u00a0to the federal workforce.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s structure is rooted in a different era, when the\u00a0Post\u00a0was a dominant print product, Murray said in his note to the staff. In areas such as video, the outlet hasn\u2019t kept up with consumer habits, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSignificantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While there are business areas that need to be addressed, Baron pointed a finger of blame at Bezos \u2014 for a \u201cgutless\u201d order to kill a presidential endorsement and for remaking an editorial page that stands out only for \u201cmoral infirmity\u201d and \u201csickening\u201d efforts to curry favor with Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The\u00a0Post,\u201d Baron wrote. \u201cIn truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baron said he was grateful for Bezos\u2019 support when he was editor, noting that the Amazon founder came under brutal pressure from Trump during the president\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe spoke forcefully and eloquently of a free press and The Post\u2019s mission, demonstrating his commitment in concrete terms,\u201d Baron wrote. \u201cHe often declared that The Post\u2019s success would be among the proudest achievements of his life. I wish I detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Washington\u00a0Post\u00a0laid off one-third of its staff Wednesday, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,186968,44,41,39,42,40,2845,186969,87294,3275],"class_list":["post-455621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-media-layoffs","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-u-s-news","tag-us-layoffs","tag-washington-post","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}