‘It’s an absolute bloodbath’: Washington Post undergoing significant layoffs as part of ‘strategic reset’

Washington Post editor in chief Matt Murray on Wednesday morning announced internally a “broad strategic reset” that will result in “significant” layoffs across the company.Staffers at the Post have been on edge for weeks about the rumored cuts, which the publication would not confirm or deny. Leading up to Wednesday’s cuts, the atmosphere in the newspaper was “funereal”, one employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said.Employees received an email on Wednesday morning asking them to attend a Zoom meeting at 8.30am after which they will learn their fate via email.It’s not yet known how many staffers will be laid off. “It’s an absolute bloodbath,” the employee said.During the meeting, Murray told employees that the Post was undergoing a “strategic reset” to better position the publication for the future, according to several employees who were on the call.Murray acknowledged that the Post has struggled to reach “customers” and talked about the competitive media marketplace. “Today, the Washington Post is taking a number of actions across the company to secure our future,” he said, according to an audio recording of the meeting.Murray told employees that the Post was ending the current iteration of its popular sports desk, though some employees will remain on a new team. The Post is also restructuring its local coverage, reducing its international reporting operation, and suspending its flagship daily news podcast Post Reports.“We all recognize the actions we are taking today will be painful – most of all, of course, for those of you who are directly affected, but for everybody,” Murray told staffers on the call. “I want to say we deeply appreciate your many talents and contributions, over many years.”He added: “I know that the reset is going to feel like a shock to the system and raise some questions for everybody.”Seeking to lay out the business case of the layoffs, however, Murray said the move was “about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming a more crowded and competitive and complicated media landscape”.After years of growth under owner Jeff Bezos, the tech billionaire behind Amazon, the Post has been shedding staff over the last few years. About 240 staffers left via buyouts offered at the end of 2023, and another chunk of staffers took buyouts last year, which were offered to any employee with more than 10 years of experience.Layoffs, particularly of journalists in the newsroom, have been less common. In fall 2024, the Post laid off 54 employees from the division responsible for its proprietary publishing software, and in January 2025, the Post laid off about 4% of staffers who worked in advertising, marketing and print operations.Over the past week, Post employees had been urging Bezos to stop – or at least soften – the planned cuts, signing letters and sending personalized messages on social media that conveyed the importance of the journalism the Post produces.But Bezos has remained silent, and did not respond to a series of letters sent by staffers representing the newspaper’s foreign, local and White House reporting teams.On Monday, though, he was there in person to warmly greet Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, on a tour of another one of the companies he owns, his Blue Origin spaceflight startup in Florida.