The Washington Post’s international desks and reporters who covered Silicon Valley — including the one assigned to Jeff Bezos’ sprawling e-commerce empire — were among the hardest hit when the capital’s most storied newspaper announced sweeping layoffs on Wednesday.
The bloodbath left the Post’s newsroom questioning the paper’s future, with one anonymous laid-off reporter telling HuffPost: “Are we a global news organization or do we just want to be Politico now?”
Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor, said in an all-staff Zoom call that the publication would undergo “a broad strategic reset” leading to “a significant staff reduction.”
In practice, this means big hits to local coverage, closing the sports section “in its current form,” eliminating the books section, shrinking the international team, restructuring the metro section, flattening the photography team and suspending its “Post Reports” podcast ― effectively gutting a legendary newsroom famed for breaking the Watergate scandal as it looks to respond to shifts in news consumption.