‘The WaPo Extinction Event’: Washington Post Employees Beg For Their Jobs as Owner Jeff Bezos Prepares to Fire 300 More Staff

The Post cuts—which could affect as many as 300 employees, according to sources—are the culmination of a two-year effort by Lewis to fundamentally transform the paper and reverse hundreds of millions in annual losses. In that effort, Lewis has decided to focus the Post’s editorial investment on a few core coverage areas—national security, politics, etcetera—while all but abandoning full-time coverage of topics where the paper doesn’t see adequate demand.

Unfortunately, that includes sports. Insiders expect the layoff process to begin as soon as this week. The Post has also been pulling back on much of its local news coverage, steering its reporters toward stories with more of a national scale.

Last year, it did away with stand-alone Sports and Metro takeouts, folding them into one section in its print editions. The paper also deemphasized local sports coverage, as evidenced by its decision to stop sending reporters to cover away games.

And while it’s harder than ever to make an impact on the sports beat in every form of media, it’s especially so in print: The Post may be owned by one of the richest men in the world, but he can’t reverse this economic reality for an entity that’s already bleeding cash.

Amid talk of the cuts, the hashtag #SavethePost gained traction on X among the Post’s current and former journalists this week.

Yet it is not just job cuts that many employees have been protesting.

In the 2024 presidential election, Bezos vetoed any formal endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump and has since tried to bring the paper back towards the political center.

Last year, Bezos said that he wanted the paper’s opinion section to focus solely on “personal liberties and free markets” rather than constantly railing against conservative America.

I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:

I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too…

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 26, 2025

Meanwhile, it was reported last year that the website’s traffic has cratered over the past few years, falling a staggering 90 percent since 2021 through 2025.

REPORT: Washington Post’s Traffic is Cratering – Has Fallen by Nearly 90 Percent Since 2021