In a dramatic public appeal, White House reporters at The Washington Post have bypassed management to directly urge billionaire owner Jeff Bezos to halt sweeping layoffs expected to devastate the storied newspaper's newsroom next month.
Collective Plea Amidst Newsroom Turmoil
With rumours swirling that over 100 newsroom employees and potentially 300 staffers company-wide could face redundancy, journalists have launched a coordinated campaign using the hashtag #SaveThePost to capture the attention of the Amazon founder who purchased the publication more than a decade ago.
The White House team – whose positions are not expected to be affected by the cuts – joined dozens of foreign correspondents in sending a "collective plea" letter to Bezos on Thursday, first reported by Semafor. This comes amid speculation that the Will Lewis-led newspaper plans to gut the Post's sports, arts, metro and foreign news departments.
Interdepartmental Collaboration at Stake
"Given the uncertainty facing the Post, we wanted to tell you directly how the White House team relies on other desks and explain how our colleagues' work helps lift up our own," the DC reporters wrote in their letter to the billionaire owner.
White House bureau chief Matt Viser emphasised this point in an internal Slack chat viewed by CNN, stating: "If the plan, to the extent there is one, is to reorient around politics we wanted to emphasize how much we rely on collaboration with foreign, sports, local – the entire paper, really. And if other sections are diminished, we all are."
The reporters continued: "We are clear eyed about the financial challenges facing the paper. When we accepted our assignments to cover the White House last year, we took the job with a goal to win back former subscribers and draw in new readers. A diversified Washington Post helps us do it."
Years of Declining Revenues and Controversial Decisions
This crisis follows years of declining revenues at The Washington Post, exacerbated by controversial decisions that have alienated both staff and subscribers. The situation intensified after Bezos blocked the editorial board's endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and pushed the publication's opinion section in a conservative-leaning direction.
These moves by the Blue Origin founder were widely interpreted as attempts to curry favour with Donald Trump during his return to the White House, resulting in the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of paid subscriptions. Compounding the problem, Bezos appeared indifferent to newsroom concerns, snubbing an invitation to speak with staff during Trump's inauguration, which contributed to an exodus of editorial talent over the past year.
Staff Losing Faith in Leadership
As Lewis pushes the Post toward profitability through aggressive cost-cutting measures, current and former journalists question whether the paper is "slashing its way to irrelevance" during what they describe as an "existential meltdown."
"There's now a strong sense that neither Jeff Bezos nor Will Lewis are serious, good-faith stewards of The Washington Post," one veteran correspondent told CNN. The source added that the pair "drove us into a ditch with their decisions, particularly the reinvention of the Opinion section, costing us hundreds of thousands of subscribers."
Another former desk editor told New York magazine that "when people were deciding which subscriptions they could live without, the Post was an easy cut." The source further noted that Bezos "made it a lot easier with his decisions" and that the paper is now "left with something that's basically on life support" due to a profound lack of vision.
In their direct appeal to Bezos, foreign correspondents captured the newsroom's desperation, writing: "We urge you to consider how the proposed layoffs will certainly lead us first to irrelevance and later extinction – not the shared success that remains attainable."
