Washington Post Reverses Decision on Olympics Coverage

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Washington Post Reverses Decision on Olympics Coverage

The newspaper will send a small team of reporters to cover the Olympics after it informed sports journalists on Friday that the paper would not send a group.


The Olympic rings and the Paralympics Agitos logo in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Claudia Greco/Reuters

By Erik Wemple and Benjamin Mullin
Jan. 26, 2026

The Washington Post is reversing course on its Winter Olympics plans — again. ... The newspaper originally intended to send more than a dozen journalists to cover the event, which has long been a major priority for The Post. Those employees were notified in a terse email on Friday, less than three weeks before the Olympics begin, that The Post would not send any of them.

Now, The Post expects to send four journalists, according to three people with knowledge of the decision. A spokeswoman for The Post confirmed the paper would be sending a small contingent.

After The Post’s change of plans became public last week, admirers of the newspaper’s sports section raised objections on social media, noting the awkward timing of the decision and the effect it could have on coverage. Christine Brennan, a columnist for USA Today who was The Post’s Olympics beat writer from 1988 to 1996, wrote on X that it was a “stunning and awful development.”

Employees at The Post were taken by surprise, in part because the company had already made significant investments to cover the Winter Games. Flights had already been booked for the journalists’ travel to Italy, where the event is being held, and The Post had already spent roughly $80,000 for lodging.

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