The Washington Post lays off roughly 100 staffers as star journalists exit

The Washington Post on Tuesday laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division, the latest indication of the newspaper’s financial woes after subscribers and staffers revolted over owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Washington Post on Tuesday laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division, the latest indication of the newspaper’s financial woes after subscribers and staffers revolted over owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The cuts, which affected roughly 4% of the publication’s staff and did not affect the newsroom, come as the beleaguered newspaper has hemorrhaged several high-profile journalists in the recent weeks. “The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are,” a Post spokesperson told CNN. “Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future.” The Post’s financial woes are nothing new. When Will Lewis, the Post’s publisher and chief executive, was named to the top job in November 2023, the storied paper was already reeling from the layoffs, readership decline, and high expenses that have hounded the entire industry. Yet, the extent to which the Post’s coffers had been sapped became apparent in May, when Lewis revealed the paper had lost $77 million in 2023. “To speak candidly,” Lewis said in a May meeting, “we are in a hole, and we have been for some time.” While Lewis offered a plan to right the ship at the time, the Post has since waded into deeper waters. Less than two weeks before the November election, Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder who acquired the Post in 2013 for $250 million, blocked the paper’s endorsement of Harris, breaking with a decades-long tradition and resulting in the resignation of three editorial board staffers. At the time, Bezos defended the move, noting in an October op-ed that “presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.”