Layoffs Looming At WaPo

The Washington Post is facing a major round of layoffs, with reports indicating up to 300 employees could be cut across the company in the coming weeks, potentially in early February 2026. This would represent a significant portion of the staff at the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper, amid ongoing financial pressures including reported losses and challenges in advertising and subscriptions.

The hardest-hit areas are expected to be in the newsroom, with more than 100 positions targeted primarily in the sports, metro, and foreign desks. Rumors circulating inside the Post suggest the sports desk could be shuttered entirely, a move that would eliminate dedicated coverage of professional and local sports. The foreign desk is also anticipated to face deep reductions, prompting foreign correspondents to send a public letter to Bezos pleading for preservation of international reporting, while using social media hashtags like #SaveThePost to raise alarms. Metro coverage, focused on local Washington, D.C.-area news, is similarly at risk.

The looming cuts follow recent decisions that heightened anxiety in the newsroom, such as an initial plan (later partially reversed after backlash) to scrap sending sports staff to cover the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, just weeks before the games begin. Additional signs include instructions to avoid new travel bookings, such as for spring training coverage of the Washington Nationals, and editors quietly advising staff in affected areas to consider looking for other jobs.

These potential reductions build on prior cost-cutting measures at the Post, including buyouts and smaller layoffs in 2023, 2024, and 2025, as leadership aims to achieve financial break-even after years of reported multimillion-dollar losses. Staffers and former employees have expressed growing concerns about owner Jeff Bezos's long-term commitment to the paper's journalistic mission, particularly in resource-intensive areas like foreign correspondence and specialized beats.

While exact numbers and final decisions remain unconfirmed by the Post, the combination of targeted desk impacts and company-wide scale has left many employees bracing for a transformative—and potentially devastating—restructuring.