The Washington Post lays off roughly 100 staffers as star journalists exit
By Liam Reilly, CNN
New York (CNN) — The Washington Post on Tuesday laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division, the latest indication of the newspaper’s financial woes after subscribers and staffers revolted over owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The cuts amounted to roughly 4% of the publication’s staff and did not affect the newsroom, a spokesperson for the Post said. The news, which was first reported in the Status newsletter, comes as the beleaguered newspaper has hemorrhaged several high-profile journalists in recent weeks and top candidates pulled out of the running for the Post’s executive editor job.
“The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are,” a Post spokesperson told CNN. “Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future.”
The Post’s financial woes are nothing new. When Will Lewis, the Post’s publisher and chief executive, was named to the top job in November 2023, the storied paper was already reeling from the layoffs, readership decline, and high expenses that have hounded the entire industry. Yet, the extent to which the Post’s coffers had been sapped became apparent in May, when Lewis revealed the paper had lost $77 million in 2023.
“To speak candidly,” Lewis said in a May meeting, “we are in a hole, and we have been for some time.”
While Lewis offered a plan to right the ship at the time, the Post has since waded into deeper waters. Less than two weeks before the November election, Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder who acquired the Post in 2013 for $250 million, blocked the paper’s endorsement of Harris, breaking with a decades-long tradition and resulting in the resignation of three editorial board staffers. At the time, Bezos defended the move, noting in an October op-ed that “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.”
Speaking with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times’ DealBook Summit, Bezos said “it was the right decision,” adding that he was “proud” of the choice.
“The advantage I bring to the Post is when they need financial resources, I’m available,” Bezos joked on stage. “I’m the doting parent in that regard.”
While Bezos is not the only billionaire media owner to block an endorsement during the 2024 election cycle, the Post’s finances have suffered from the move. In the days after Bezos blocked the endorsement, over 250,000 Post readers canceled their subscriptions, roughly 10% of the paper’s digital subscribers.
Inside The Post, the move ignited turmoil, leading to several recent high-profile defections.
In December, Matea Gold, the Post’s managing editor, shared she was leaving the Post for The New York Times. Last week, The Atlantic poached political reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, the Times scooped up White House reporter Tyler Pager, the Wall Street Journal nabbed investigative politics reporter Josh Dawsey, and Puck poached veteran journalist Leigh Ann Caldwell.
And, on Friday, Ann Telnaes, the Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, very publicly resigned from the outlet after the newspaper refused to publish a satirical cartoon depicting Bezos bending the knee before Trump.
The moves come as Bezos attempts to repair his relationship with the incoming president, dining last month with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and making a $1 million donation to his inaugural fund.
On Sunday, Amazon said it would release a documentary about first lady Melania Trump on its Prime Video platform later this year. Melania Trump will serve as an executive producer of the project, signaling that the documentary is being made with her full participation — and editorial control.
The-CNN-Wire
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