Overview
- The Washington Post cut more than 300 jobs—about one‑third of staff—eliminating its sports desk and sharply reducing foreign, metro, books, and other coverage areas.
- Lewis skipped the internal meeting announcing the cuts but was photographed on the NFL Honors red carpet in San Francisco the next day, prompting sharp criticism from current and former Post journalists.
- Union members posted “wanted” flyers in Lewis’ neighborhood with a QR code urging letters to management to halt further reductions and warned the cuts would weaken the paper’s mission.
- Tech, science, health and business teams were reduced from roughly 80 to 33 staffers, the tech desk lost 14 people, and the San Francisco bureau was left largely empty, affecting coverage of Amazon, AI and investigations.
- Leaders cite steep losses and declining readership—reported around $100 million lost in 2024 and a major traffic drop—as rationale for a “strategic reset,” while critics point to Bezos’ past editorial interventions, including blocking a Harris endorsement, and note Ruth Marcus resigned after her dissenting column was refused.