The Washington Post (WP), a leading U.S. newspaper, on the 4th local time began the largest and most sweeping restructuring in its 149-year history. It comes 13 years after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the paper in 2013. The Washington Post union said about 800 of the company's roughly 2,500 employees were laid off.
Among them, the newsroom staff, including reporters, is estimated by the union at around 300 to 400. Editor-in-chief Matt Murray called the move "a painful but unavoidable choice" in an internal memo. The Washington Post posted an annual loss of $177 million (about 230 billion won) last year.
Murray said, "We cannot be an organization that satisfies everyone," and noted that the company is proceeding with both staff cuts and a narrowing of coverage. He emphasized that this restructuring is a "strategic reset." He added that the largest pillar will remain politics and government coverage, and that the science, health, technology, and business desks will also be maintained.
The restructuring touched a wide range of areas, including eliminating the sports desk and affecting editing, metro, international, and culture coverage.
The most striking change is the dismantling of the sports section. The Washington Post decided to shut down the current sports desk and lay off or reassign related staff. The sports desk reportedly had about 45 reporters. Most of them received work-from-home standby orders, effectively a layoff notice. Only some reporters were reassigned to a team that covers sports from cultural and social perspectives. Experts said this will likely erase The Washington Post's image as a "brand strong in local sports coverage," built over decades.
Its overseas reporting network will also be drastically reduced. The number of foreign bureaus was cut to 12, less than half of the 26 previously operated. The Cairo bureau in Egypt, a key hub amid the Middle East crisis, received layoff notices for all staff. Reuters said many correspondent and bureau chief positions in Europe and Asia, including the Middle East, were eliminated. The Washington Post has shown strength in foreign reporting, having won the Pulitzer Prize's international reporting category, often called the "Nobel Prize of journalism," multiple times. However, analysts said the paper is giving up its status as a global general-interest daily and reverting to a Washington policy-focused specialty outlet.
The book review section "Book World" was also scrapped. With the disappearance of the fixed weekend section that compiled reviews and literary interviews, culture coverage is expected to shrink significantly as well. The daily news podcast "Post Reports" will also be halted. Cutting back on a podcast format that symbolized digital expansion is seen as a sign that short-term cost savings have become crucial for The Washington Post.
Traffic collapse and struggles with the revenue model are cited as the backdrop for the restructuring. According to Bloomberg, The Washington Post's organic search traffic has fallen by nearly half over the past three years. As Generative AI reshaped user experience, the number of readers finding articles through search plunged. Major search engines have also shifted toward providing summary answers over article links.
However, the drop in search referrals and the spread of Generative AI are not problems unique to The Washington Post. They are common across major news organizations. Experts said the Post's reliance on search had long been relatively high compared with other outlets, so it was hit harder when the referral structure changed. On the business model side, it also lacked hooks to lock in subscribers, such as games, product sales, and bundle services.
Based on audit materials, last year The Washington Post had 97,000 paid print subscribers, and Sunday circulation was 160,000. That is a sharp drop from an average of 250,000 daily subscribers in 2020. In a market where print newspapers have rapidly declined and digital expansion has faltered, the paper failed to build a structure that offsets fixed costs such as printing and logistics expenses.
AP reported that during the same period, rival The New York Times (NYT) expanded its subscription base by growing add-on services such as games and product recommendations. In 2022, The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million (about 798 billion won), a sports outlet with global prestige. Starting the following year, it replaced its online sports section with The Athletic and removed the sports section from the print edition.
By contrast, The Washington Post chose to shrink general-interest breadth such as sports and book reviews and put Washington political and security reporting front and center. While the move aims at both cost savings and redefining identity, readers can be expected to feel a backlash from having less to read.
The controversy over "political headwinds" that erupted during the last presidential election alienated even loyal readers. Owner Bezos forced the withdrawal of an editorial endorsing candidate Kamala Harris that the newsroom had prepared in 2024. Afterward, allegations of Bezos abusing his authority and backlash against the Harris endorsement flared simultaneously, causing 200,000 digital subscribers to leave within a week. That amounts to 8% of all paid subscribers. Observers said excessive political correctness and partisan coverage skewed to one side caused fatigue among not only conservatives but also centrist readers. After the decision to stop the editorial, complaints and confusion erupted from readers across the spectrum, which, analysts said, cracked the brand and its credibility.
Former editor-in-chief Marty Baron said in an interview with the left-leaning Guardian that "the owner Bezos' sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump" led to brand destruction. The current size of the Post's losses does not deliver a major financial shock to Bezos, whose assets exceed $200 billion. With Bezos' core businesses, including Amazon and space exploration company Blue Origin, entangled in government regulation and Ministry of National Defense contracts, critics say he has reduced The Washington Post to a "shield to protect his business." Former Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler said, "It looks less like Bezos is trying to save The Washington Post and more like he is trying to withstand political pressure surrounding himself and his corporate empire in a second Trump administration."
Those laid off this time will remain on the books as employees until Apr. 10 and receive six months of health insurance. However, the Washington Post union issued a statement saying, "If owner Bezos has no will to uphold the journalistic mission, he should sell the paper."