Washington Post employees were laid off yesterday morning during a call where Executive Editor Matt Murray delivered the disturbing news. According to multiple reports, that was about 30% of the entire Post workforce, not just the editorial newsroom.
According to the NY Times, “Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas.
“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming a more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape,” Mr. Murray said. “And after some years when, candidly, The Post has had struggles.”
This shows us one glaring thing. Jeff Bezos has no idea how to run a newspaper business, and that that was probably never really his intention. Since purchasing the Post, Bezos’ worth has skyrocketed. When he bought the Post back in 2013 for a cool $250 million, he was already worth around $28 billion. As of late 2025, Jeff Bezos’ net worth is estimated at approximately $215 billion dollars.
Bezos bought one of the most historic papers of record that is almost 150 years old, and 12 years later, he ripped it to shreds.
To add insult to injury, he did it in a ruthless way. He sent executive editor Murray, who by all accounts has been a ghost of an editor that isn’t active or present in his role, to let everyone know over a company-wide Zoom call. The sports section was all but eliminated, and the book section… yes the book section, was closed.
Murray also told employees that their international bureau’s and metro desks were going to get cutback drastically as well. Ukraine correspondent Lizzie Johnson, now formerly of the Post, was let go in the middle of a war zone. She tweeted about it on X, mentioning how she was, naturally, devastated by the news.
Post by former Washington Post Ukraine correspondent Lizzie Johnson.
The Post is no stranger to changing markets and economies. When Bezos bought them back in 2013, they were in the midst of such a change. This morning on NPR, Steve Inkeep, host of ‘Morning Edition’, spoke with Marty Baron, the paper's former executive editor. In the interview, Baron spoke about how when Bezos took over ownership at that time, there was a clear directive on what the paper needed to do to move into the digital age. He felt that by in large that that happened, and that most of initiatives and proposals that were brought to Bezos’ desk were approved, and that the Post sped into the future. He went on to say that with the current executive editor Murray and the news of the layoffs, there is no clear direction on where the Post goes from here.
Baron also wrote a seething response to the company’s decision to layoff over 30% of it’s workforce.
Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, who left the paper in 2012.
Much of what he says is true. To bring it into more simple terms, Bezos, a billionaire, has cozied up with Trump and has chosen money and perception of power that a cozy relationship with the worlds most powerful leader can provide. By making this decision, to rip apart a nearly 150 year old institution of American journalistic might, the paper of record who blew open the Pentagon papers, and then Watergate. Two of the biggest stories in American political history.
There is no mistaking that this decimation of the Post was deliberate. The ownership of this paper do not believe in a robust free press. Bezos cut the head off of one of his own businesses, because he could, and because he wanted to. To protect his rich friends, and his rich self.