Washington Post Plans Cuts to Reshape Newsroom

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Washington Post Plans Cuts to Reshape Newsroom

The changes are expected to include significant layoffs in areas like sports and international coverage.


The Washington Post’s newsroom in 2017. Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

By Erik Wemple, Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin
Erik Wemple, Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin report on the media business. Mr. Wemple covered the industry at The Washington Post for 14 years.

Jan. 29, 2026

Fewer reporters are being sent to the Super Bowl. Foreign correspondents are being asked to hold off on trips to conflict zones. And editors are being encouraged to experiment with new forms of storytelling. ... They are signs of things to come at The Washington Post. ... The Post’s leadership is expected to announce significant layoffs in the newsroom and the business sides of the paper in the coming days, as part of an effort to end years of financial losses, according to three people with direct knowledge of the changes. But the cuts also appear to be aimed at something else: reorienting The Post’s coverage.

The sports, local and international sections are preparing to take a disproportionate share of the pain. At the same time, the paper’s video journalists, as well as reporters and editors focused on politics and national security — two of the paper’s signature coverage areas — are expected to become even more central to the company’s future. ... The changes could sharply narrow the scope of The Post. Over the past century, the outlet evolved from a scrappy metro newspaper into a general interest national news powerhouse that cracked Watergate and covered far-flung countries as well as sports, fashion, dining and travel.

The cuts are intended to direct The Post’s resources to topics that executives believe better align with the newsroom’s areas of expertise and reader interests, and in formats that people increasingly turn to for information, one of the people said. Executives devised their approach after studying the digital traffic to the organization’s coverage. ... The hope, the person said, is that the moves will help make the paper self-sustaining — a goal set long ago by its owner, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder. The company has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.

The newsroom, including many editors, remains largely in the dark on the specifics of the staff reductions and the long-term plan for the organization. Last year, The Post completed a round of buyouts that trimmed the newsroom by dozens of journalists. In the months since, many of the journalists who remain have grown increasingly frustrated about the lack of clarity from Mr. Bezos and the paper’s publisher, Will Lewis.

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Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Katie Robertson covers the media industry for The Times. Email: [e-mail]

Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at [phone] or at [e-mail].