The iconic American daily, The Washington Post, on Wednesday laid off about one in three employees across the company, delivering another major blow to a newsroom already under strain and sharply scaling back its international coverage.
The cuts included large portions of the paper’s foreign staff, prompting anguished reactions from journalists who said the move would weaken global reporting at a moment of rising international turbulence.
Among those laid off was Ishaan Tharoor, a senior foreign affairs columnist, who said on social media: “I have been laid off today from the @washingtonpost, along with most of the International staff and so many other wonderful colleagues. I’m heartbroken for our newsroom and especially for the peerless journalists who served the Post internationally — editors and correspondents who have been my friends and collaborators for almost 12 years.”
Tharoor said he launched the WorldView column in January 2017 “to help readers better understand the world and America’s place in it,” adding that he was grateful for “the half a million loyal subscribers who tuned into the column several times a week over the years.”
The scale of the international cuts was underscored by Evan A. Feigenbaum, who wrote that the Post had laid off “its Asia editor, its New Delhi bureau chief, its Sydney bureau chief, its Cairo bureau chief, the entire Middle East reporting team, China correspondents, Iran correspondents, Turkey correspondents, and many more.”
“The world is becoming less America-centric by the minute while the United States is becoming more America-centric than ever,” Feigenbaum said, calling the decision “a depressing yet somehow perfect summation of our current moment.”
Anna Fifield said she was laid off as Asia editor, describing it as “an absolute privilege to work with people who are not only incredible journalists but also wonderful humans.” Pranshu Verma said he had been laid off after serving as the paper’s New Delhi bureau chief, calling it “an honour” to have held the role.
Employees were told to “stay home today” as notices were sent out. Executive editor Matt Murray said in an internal memo that “these moves include substantial newsroom reductions impacting nearly all news departments.” He said international coverage would be “markedly reduced,” though some bureaus outside the United States would maintain a “strategic overseas presence.”
The cuts also include a sharply reduced Metro desk, the near-total shutdown of the Sports section, the closure of the Books section, and the cancellation of the daily “Post Reports” podcast, sources said. Major reductions are also being made on the business side of the company.
Murray said the restructuring would “help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward,” though several staff members expressed skepticism publicly. “I’m out, along with just a ton of the best in the biz. Horrible,” Amazon beat reporter Caroline O’Donovan wrote. Race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton said, “This wasn’t a financial decision, it was an ideological one.”
Post owner Jeff Bezos had no immediate comment. He has pushed management to return the paper to profitability, a strategy that has drawn criticism inside the newsroom. Former Post executive editor Marty Baron said the layoffs ranked “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations.”
“Of course, there were acute business problems that had to be addressed,” Baron wrote. But he said those challenges were “made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top,” adding that loyal subscribers “were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.”
The Washington Post, founded in 1877, has played a central role in American journalism for generations, from exposing the Watergate scandal to extensive foreign correspondence. Like many U.S. newspapers, it has struggled with declining subscriptions and advertising revenue amid rapid changes in media consumption.
