The Washington Post Announces Sweeping layoffs, cuts Sports and Books Sections.

WASHINGTON–The Washington Post announced a major reduction in force Wednesday, eliminating entire sections of its newsroom and laying off roughly 300 employees as part of a strategic restructuring aimed at stemming financial losses and refocusing its coverage. 

In an internal message to staff shortly before a companywide Zoom call Wednesday morning, leaders said the newspaper would be making “significant changes” across its editorial operations. The cuts include the elimination of the sports and books sections and deep reductions to international reporting desks.

Longtime staff members in sports journalism were informed that the department would be dismantled, a move that comes after weeks of internal uncertainty and speculation about the unit’s future. The books desk, long responsible for national cultural coverage and author interviews, also will be shuttered, leaving critics to question the future of arts coverage at the paper. 

Foreign and international coverage teams — traditionally responsible for reporting from bureaus abroad — will be significantly reduced, according to people familiar with the decisions. The moves mark one of the most sweeping newsroom transformations in the newspaper’s history. 

The layoffs — which newsroom union leaders and outside media reports estimate at about 300 employees — span editorial and business units. Many journalists and staffers who had been preparing for the cuts described a tense atmosphere in recent weeks, with leadership publicly signaling a desire to concentrate resources on core areas such as politics and national security coverage. 

Employee morale has been strained by the prolonged uncertainty. In recent days, journalists across multiple desks publicly pleaded with owner Jeff Bezos and publisher Will Lewis to reconsider deep cuts, particularly to foreign and specialty coverage. Those efforts did not avert Wednesday’s announcement.