The Washington Put up is shedding round 4% of its workforce, the corporate introduced on Tuesday — the newest blow to the newspaper that has seen steep monetary losses in addition to an exodus of prime expertise from a newsroom that has grown more and more alienated from proprietor Jeff Bezos and writer Will Lewis.
The layoffs will influence fewer than 100 individuals all through the newspaper’s enterprise division, together with its gross sales and advertising groups in addition to data expertise items, based on the publication.
Information of the layoffs was first reported by the New York Instances and the Standing publication.
When reached by The Put up, a spokesperson for the Washington Put up confirmed the Instances report.
The cuts is not going to have an effect on the newsroom, which decreased its headcount two years in the past when the corporate eradicated 240 jobs.
“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,” the assertion from the newspaper learn.
“Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future.”
Final 12 months, Lewis informed staffers that the paper misplaced $77 million in 2023 and that its digital subscriber base fell off significantly since 2020.
Since 2021, the Washington Put up has seen a 14% decline in digital income and a 12% drop in complete income, based on Poynter.
In 2020, the newspaper boasted 3 million digital subscribers. However by 2023, that quantity shrank to 2.5 million.
Whereas the newspaper’s web site recorded 101 million distinctive month-to-month guests in 2020, that quantity fell to 50 million in 2023.
The Washington Put up reported working income of $246 million in 2018, which fell throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s first time period in workplace.
However the election of Joe Biden ushered in a darkish period for the newspaper, which attracted a big, predominantly liberal subscriber base because the publication positioned itself as adversarial to the Republican Trump.
Bezos, the billionaire Amazon founder, has sought to alter the notion of his newspaper by blocking the editorial board from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris simply weeks earlier than the Nov. 5 election.
The choice angered Washington Put up readers. As many as 250,000 subscribers reportedly canceled their memberships in response.
Two columnists, Michele Norris and Robert Kagan, resigned from the newspaper in protest whereas two others, Molly Roberts and David Hoffman, stepped down from the editorial board.
Final week, two of the Washington Put up’s prime political reporters — Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer — have been poached by The Atlantic, which is owned by a bunch funded by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs.
Josh Dawsey, one other extremely valued political investigative reporter, is ready to depart the Washington Put up and take up a place with the Wall Avenue Journal.
Tyler Pager, a White Home correspondent, is claimed to be “mulling a transfer” or has “already decided to exit,” based on a report by Puck Information.
Ann Telnaes, a longtime cartoonist with the Washington Put up, introduced that she give up the newspaper in protest over the choice to spike an illustration that mocked Bezos as subservient to Trump.
In June, Sally Buzbee, the manager editor, left the publication — as did managing editor Matea Gold.
The strikes have been a part of a restructuring of the newsroom underneath Lewis, whose tenure has been a rocky one marred with staffer dissatisfaction over his management model.
