laid off roughly a third of its newsroom,<\/a> former staff and supporters gathered outside the paper\u2019s Downtown D.C. headquarters to protest the cuts.<\/p>\nFormer transportation reporter Rachel Weiner, who spent 15 years at the Post, told the large crowd she was struggling with the loss of her job and what it meant for the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019m sad about it obviously,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is really disappointing having worked to cover as much as possible in this region because it\u2019s also important. The Post has just decided it doesn\u2019t matter to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weiner said this round of cuts was handled differently from past layoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did something they haven\u2019t done in previous layoffs and buyouts, which is you lock us out of the building and the systems immediately and not let us finish anything we were working on,\u201d Weiner said.<\/p>\n
The rally was organized by the Post News Guild and the Post Tech Guild unions. The crowd listened as journalists and tech workers described the impact of losing hundreds of colleagues.<\/p>\n
D.C. communities reporter Michael Brice-Saddler told the rally the Metro section staff could no longer adequately serve the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is the Metro desk supposed to earn the community\u2019s trust if you keep taking resources away from the Metro section of this paper?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The newspaper also eliminated its entire sports department.<\/p>\n
Speaking for her colleagues, former sports reporter Molly Hensley\u2011Clancy said the loss of the desk was both \u201cheartbreaking\u201d and \u201csenseless.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing as riveting as sports, and there\u2019s nothing that brings all of America together like sports,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She continued, \u201cThere is simply is no Washington Post without sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former enterprise reporter Marissa J. Lang, who was also laid off, said the full impact of losing so many journalists will ripple far beyond the newsroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we know yet the impact of losing 300 journalists who hold power to account,\u201d she told the crowd. \u201cI know that the region and the country and the world is a worse place today for having lost all of these incredible reporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rally also drew former staff who were not part of this week\u2019s layoffs but came to support their colleagues. Among them was Kathryn Tolbert, who worked at the paper for 27 years before retiring a few years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking the way the heart and soul of the paper are being torn apart,\u201d Tolbert said. \u201cThis feels different in a really fundamental way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a9 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day after the Washington Post laid off roughly a third of its newsroom, former staff and supporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,50803,2539,12883,211854,27363,22385,107468,211855],"class_list":["post-451915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-job-cuts","tag-layoffs","tag-mike-murillo","tag-press-freedom","tag-protest","tag-rally","tag-washington-post","tag-washington-post-news-guild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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