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WaPo Expected To Lay Off Dozens of Staffers as Beleaguered Paper Bleeds Talent and Subscribers

Jeff Bezos / Getty Images
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos (Getty Images)
January 6, 2025

The Washington Post is expected to announce dozens of layoffs this week as the beleaguered paper faces an exodus of top talent and growing financial troubles, according to a Monday report.

The staff cuts will be deep and impact the business division of the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper, individuals familiar with the internal deliberations told Oliver Darcy of the Status newsletter.

A number of high-profile staffers have left the Post in the wake of the paper’s decision not to endorse a candidate in the November presidential election. In late October, two editorial board staffers resigned and over 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions following Bezos’s decision to block the editorial board’s presidential endorsement of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned Friday after the paper refused to publish her cartoon portraying Bezos and other billionaires kowtowing to President-elect Donald Trump.

Josh Dawsey, one of the Post’s leading political reporters, is also departing to join the Wall Street Journal, according to a weekend report by Darcy. His exit follows those of senior political reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, who left last week to join the Atlantic.

The Post has struggled financially in recent years and was on track to lose $77 million in 2024 even before the mass boycott erupted, New York magazine reported.