The Washington Post has announced it is laying off one-third of its work force, sharply scaling back the paper's coverage of sports and foreign news.

The cuts, announced on Wednesday, will impact employees across departments with roles in the newsroom's sports, local and foreign sections hit particularly hard.

It marks the latest upheaval for the leading US newspaper, which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.

Executive editor Matt Murray said the cuts would bring "stability". But the announcement was met with condemnation from the paper's employees and some former leaders, one of whom described it as among the "darkest days in the history of" the storied newspaper.

"Today's news is painful. These are difficult actions," Murray wrote in a note to staff on Wednesday.

"If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition."

In his explanation of the cuts, Murray said that the paper's online traffic had plummeted in the last three years amid the artificial intelligence boom, and that it was "too rooted in a different era".

"Even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience," he said.

Ahead of the announcement, foreign correspondents and local reporters had pleaded with Bezos to preserve their jobs.

"Continuing to eliminate workers only stands to weaken the newspaper, drive away readers and undercut The Post's mission," the Washington Post Guild said in a statement on Wednesday.

Laid off journalists took to social media, with many voicing anger about the decision to scale back coverage of foreign news.

The paper's former Cairo bureau chief said she was laid off alongside the "entire roster" of Middle East correspondents and editors. A correspondent based in Ukraine lamented losing her job "in the middle of a warzone".

Another reporter said most of the paper's metro section, which is focused on news in the Washington DC region, had also been laid off.

Marty Baron, who served as The Post's editor until 2021, called it "among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations".

He said Bezos, who bought the newspaper for $250mn in 2013, had spoken "forcefully and eloquently of a free press" during his tenure as the paper's editor, which encompassed President Donald Trump's first term in the White House.

But, Baron added: "I wish I detected the same spirit today. There is no sign of it."

A spokesperson for The Post said in a statement that the steps were "designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus".

The layoffs mark the latest in a series of staff cuts and buyouts across The Post's departments in recent years, amid backlash to some of the paper's editorial decisions.

The newspaper swiftly lost tens of thousands of subscribers after it announced, shortly before the 2024 US presidential election, that it would not endorse a presidential candidate - a decision made by billionaire owner Bezos.

The move broke with decades of tradition, with the paper having endorsed a candidate in most presidential elections since the 1970s - all of whom had been Democrats.

Bezos' move last year to focus the paper's opinion section on "personal liberties and free markets" prompted the editor of that section to resign.

The Post's financial woes and falling subscriber base stand in contrast to The New York Times, which reported on Wednesday that it added about 450,000 digital-only subscribers in the last quarter of 2025. (BBC)

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