The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has begun a sweeping round of layoffs that will eliminate roughly one in three newsroom jobs, marking one of the most severe workforce reductions in the paper’s history.
Staff were informed on Wednesday that the cuts are part of what management described as a “broad strategic reset,” a move that will shutter entire departments, sharply reduce international coverage, and significantly restructure local and editorial operations.
Emails sent to employees on Wednesday morning indicated that about 300 of The Post’s roughly 800 journalists are expected to lose their jobs. Several staffers described the scale of the cuts as a “bloodbath.”
Employees were told they would be notified individually of their status and that those laid off would receive benefits through mid-April.
“These moves are painful,” Executive Editor Matt Murray said during a staff-wide call. “This is a tough day.”
Entire sections dismantled
According to Murray, the paper’s sports department and books section will be closed, while the flagship podcast Post Reports will be suspended. The number of editors will be “significantly reduced,” art teams will be merged, and the metro desk will be restructured.
The Post’s foreign bureaus will be “shrunk,” though Murray said the outlet would maintain a limited overseas presence focused on “national security.” Some sports reporters will be reassigned to features coverage.
“We can’t be everything to everyone,” Murray told staff. “But we must be indispensable where we compete.”
Bezos silent as pleas from newsroom go unanswered
The announcement came after a collective appeal from newsroom staff urging Bezos to intervene and halt the expected downsizing. Those appeals went unanswered.
Bezos, who purchased the newspaper in 2013, did not publicly address the layoffs. Staffers noted that he did not respond to letters from the foreign desk, metro reporters, or White House correspondents calling for his involvement.
‘One of the darkest days’
Former executive editor Marty Baron placed responsibility squarely on ownership, calling the layoffs “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
“The Washington Post’s ambitions will be sharply diminished,” Baron said, adding that readers would be denied “ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world.”
Newsroom sources cited Bezos’s decision to pull the editorial board’s planned 2024 presidential endorsement of Kamala Harris as a major turning point. In the days that followed, more than 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions, according to staff accounts.
The shift in the opinion section’s direction, along with Bezos’s role in reshaping it, was also cited by former and current staff as accelerating the paper’s financial difficulties.
‘Surviving Trump’
“Bezos is not trying to save The Washington Post. He’s trying to survive Donald Trump,” former Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote on his Substack.....More Below
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/02/04/763527/Washington-Post-Bezos-layoffs
Ambassador Andrey Kelin said Moscow would treat NATO soldiers on the ground as a security threat
Russia will treat the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine as a threat to its security, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin has said.
The diplomat rejected plans by the so-called Coalition of the Willing to send “peacekeepers” to Ukraine after a ceasefire is reached with Russia.
“We will not allow [the deployment] of any NATO member state’s troops on the territory of Ukraine because it will be another line of attack against Russia,” Kelin said in an interview with Channel 4 News aired on Wednesday. “We understand that Ukraine wants guarantees. We also need guarantees,” he added.
The diplomat said the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would be unacceptable. Asked about a Financial Times report that Ukraine and its European backers had agreed to deploy Western troops in the event of a violation of a potential ceasefire, Kelin said such plans were “dead.”
Kelin...
Pentagon
Telaviv is reportedly concerned that Trump could reach a deal with Tehran without ordering military strikes
A senior Israeli military delegation led by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir made a secret visit to Washington over the weekend amid intensifying tensions over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and a growing US military presence in the region.
According to Israeli and US media reports, Zamir met with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and other senior US defense officials at the Pentagon to present sensitive intelligence, discuss military options against Iran and attempt to shape ongoing diplomatic contacts between the Trump administration and Tehran.
The visit, which had not been publicly disclosed at the time, comes as Israel is growing increasingly concerned that US President Donald Trump could ultimately strike a deal with Iran focused narrowly on freezing uranium enrichment while leaving Tehran’s ballistic missile program largely intact and ...
Negotiations over the agreement between Kinshasa and Washington lack transparency and breach Congolese law, Corneille Nangaa has claimed
An agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) and the US on critical minerals is “deeply flawed and unconstitutional,” the leader of a rebel coalition in the Central African nation has told Reuters.
Corneille Nangaa, who leads the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), which includes the M23 force, said the deal was negotiated behind closed doors and breaches Congolese law.
The strategic partnership, part of the Washington Accord for Peace and Prosperity signed on December 4, is intended to expand US access to critical minerals in return for investment and security cooperation.
However, Nangaa told Reuters on Monday that “the opacity surrounding the negotiations” and “procedural flaws, particularly the violation of the constitution and the law,” undermine the agreement’s legitimacy.....more below
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