The Washington Post has been losing lots of money–reportedly, around $100 million annually–so something had to give. Owner Jeff Bezos has lowered the boom, with layoffs announced yesterday:
The embattled Washington Post is laying off more than 300 employees—about a third of its already shrunken staff—as it guts sports, local news, and international coverage to cut costs and, its executives hope, boost readership.
Among other things, the Post will no longer have a sports section.
The Post’s problem, in part, is that it failed to find a viable niche on the left side of the news spectrum:
[T]he New York Times, which the Post has long aspired to be considered an equal to, has pulled far ahead. Back in Washington, Politico has dethroned the Post as the leader in political news coverage.
The Times left the Post in the dust by being crazier and more irresponsible. The Post was left without much of a reader base.
Of course, we aren’t shedding any tears over the Post’s semi-demise. It deserves everything it is getting. I can’t improve on some of the reactions collected at InstaPundit:
I do not delight in the dispatch of dutiful defenders of Democracy at the @washingtonpost but its downfall was destined the day they deemed this daft dictum didactic. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/dU4lSC8gXu
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) February 4, 2026
The Washington Post committed ideological suicide a long time ago and these layoffs are a form of administrative bloodletting that will do nothing to change the fact that the newspaper is already dead. https://t.co/mBzV5w9eci
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) February 4, 2026
So to be clear, Bezos announces a new moderate shift for the Wash Post, then a bunch of journalists (and other activists) encourage people to cancel their subscriptions, which they do, resulting in more jobs now being cut?
What are they upset about then? Today is exactly what… https://t.co/Ec221l8Tqi
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 4, 2026
Then of course there is this. It is evergreen:
A generational talent https://t.co/Ljge13WUxs pic.twitter.com/InYwxtOg9b
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) February 5, 2026
To be fair, as I recall Jennifer left the Post, not vice versa, when she concluded the paper was not far enough left. So she got out before the ship sank beneath the waves.
