Washington Post audience left wondering what comes next

The Washington Post had a major shakeup on Wednesday — laying off hundreds of journalists. Nearly every department was impacted. The sports and foreign verticals were pretty much gutted. Books coverage was eliminated. Deep cuts hit areas like design and photography.

With an email to staff and a Zoom call, the Post demolished a third of its newsroom in what former iconic editor Marty Baron called “one of the darkest days” in the history of one of the world’s most respected and important news organizations.

But one of the biggest questions coming out of the bombshell news is what is next for the Post in terms of coverage? It’s a question that really hasn’t been answered in detail, at least not publicly, and the paper’s audience, was left with more questions than answers.

Yes, the Post news was everywhere on Wednesday. But the only story in the Post itself was a story written by The Associated Press instead of one of the Post’s insightful media writers. That story was not prominently displayed on the Post’s website.

Usually when a paper makes moves to substantially alter its coverage — like nearly wiping out the sports section — it explains it to its readers. As an example, when my former newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, turned their weekly features section into a monthly magazine back in 2012, it wrote a story explaining the reasons behind the move and what would be in the new section.

So what about the Post, which did a whole lot more than alter its features section?

Executive editor Matt Murray did publish a note in the print edition of the Post on Thursday.

In the note, Murray wrote that the Post remains committed to a “strong, robust print newspaper for our local market.” He later added, “We are taking a series of actions, and rethinking some of the ways we do things, amid sweeping changes in our industry.”

He went on to say, again, that the Post is committed to a strong print product. He did include an email and phone number for those who have questions. 

What he didn’t do, however, was get into details. He did not give any insight into what the new sports desk will actually cover. He didn’t answer why a paper that was once a leader in foreign coverage is scaling back like it is.

It should also be noted that Murray’s note was not on the Post’s website, where a large portion of their subscribers are.

In other words, if you’re a regular reader of the Post, you’re left pretty much in the dark about what all these changes actually mean.

Meanwhile, Post owner Jeff Bezos is taking most of the criticism for the paper’s cuts. But in an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter, Murray said Bezos remains committed to the Post. (To his credit, Murray has been speaking to the media.)

“He wants the Post to be a bigger, relevant, thriving institution,” Murray said.

That quote will certainly raise eyebrows. How does cutting a third of your staff help to make an institution “bigger” “relevant” and “thriving?”

Stelter wrote, “Some of the cuts, he indicated, were about short-term stabilization of the business, not about a permanent reduction in the Post’s ambitions. He sidestepped a question about whether he considered resigning rather than implementing the drastic reductions in force.”

Murray said, “I want to have the chance to see if we can get the Post to a better place. That’s important because the Post is an important institution that should survive and should thrive.”

It doesn’t sound like it’s going to happen, but many would like to see Bezos sell the Post instead of running it the way he has.

The Post Guild said in a statement, “If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, then The Post deserves a steward that will.”

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A Post protest

Hundreds of people gathered outside The Washington Post on Thursday to protest the layoffs.

Marissa J. Lang, an enterprise reporter who was let go by the Post, was quoted saying, “A lot of people have been asking me about the impact of these cuts, and I have very honestly been telling them, I don't think we know yet. The impact of losing 300 journalists who hold power to account, who investigate corruption, who tell you about what's happening in war zones overseas, and whether your kids' schools will be open because it snowed, is immeasurable.”

A legendary section

Over the past couple of weeks, as it became clear that the Post was going to gut its sports section, many (including me) waxed poetic about the legendary legacy of the Post sports department. To use a sports cliche, The Washington Post was the ‘27 Yankees — the best there has ever been. Their lineup included the likes of Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Sally Jenkins and Thomas Boswell, just to name a few.

The man who led that sports section as sports editor for nearly three decades was the terrific George Solomon.

Solomon told Sports Business Journal’s Tom Friend, “I feel very sad that they’ve chosen to eliminate the section and most of the staff. And for reasons that I still don’t know. Because it certainly can’t help circulation and clicks, which they say now. It’s got to hurt. And I can’t see any reason why they did it.”

Solomon added, “I feel they lost something today. They lost something very important —- that sports is part of the fabric of American society and people love it. Not everybody. Not everybody reads the opinion section. Not everybody read the Westminster Dog Show in the Post today. But Howard Simons, who was the (Post’s) managing editor in the early ’70s and passed away at a very young age, always said that the Post was like a supermarket. It was a little something for everybody, and that’s the way it was. And I think that it lost something today.”

Solomon added, “We lost something very, very big today, which doesn’t mean we can’t get it back. The owner of the newspaper is a very successful man, and he may see that he made a mistake. That’s why we had the correction page on (page) two. We used to make them all the time, and we had a correction page. And I think they made a mistake, and they ought to correct it.”

Jenkins’ take

Sally Jenkins is certainly on the short list of the greatest sports columnists of all time. She worked at the Post for nearly 30 years before accepting a buyout last summer and taking a job at The Atlantic.

She shared her thoughts about the Post in a piece for The Atlantic: “You Can’t Kill Swagger.”

As you would expect from Jenkins, the piece is brilliant. She reminisced about special moments of camaraderie among the staff, as well as what made the section elite.

Jenkins wrote, “One of the most valuable things lost with the killing of the Sports section will be the Post’s sense of proper training of the young. After I covered my first Army-Navy game, the great columnist Thomas Boswell took me to dinner and talked writing. My first Olympics was the Calgary Games in 1988, and I wrote well out of sheer excitement. When I got home, the columnist Tony Kornheiser, now Wilbon’s longtime ‘Pardon the Interruption’ co-host, told me, ‘You did great. But listen. This is your level now, all the time. You don’t retreat from this level.’ I did 10 Olympics for the Post. At the Athens Games, in 2004, I took pleasure in watching the young Barry Svrluga lift his own writing game out of sheer excitement. ‘This is your level now,’ I told him. ‘You don’t retreat from it.’”

Jenkins added, “That’s who we were, and who we are. I say ‘we’ because I left The Washington Post for The Atlantic five months ago, after 30 years at the paper, and I still have the reflexes and the friends. I also feel an anger at the demise of the Sports section — about 40 of 45 people fired, the rest thrown to other sections — that cannot be extinguished, and that only grows as more details emerge.”

The sporting life

It’s a huge sports weekend. First today, the Winter Olympics in Italy get underway with the Opening Ceremonies. NBC and Peacock will carry the Games.

Here’s Deadline’s Melanie Goodfellow with “Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, 3,500 Athletes, 1,300 Performers, Three ICE Agents & Maybe Tom Cruise? What To Expect At The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.”

And The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand features the NBC’s president and executive producer for the Olympics, Molly Solomon, in “The mastermind behind NBC’s Olympic transformation: ‘She is a visionary.’”

Then Sunday, it’s Super Bowl LX between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif. NBC also is carrying that game.

Here’s Marchand again writing about the Super Bowl’s play-by-play voice in “‘The Greatest Heist’: Mike Tirico’s Super Bowl-sized decision that transformed sports TV.”

As far as the game, everyone on the planet outside of New England is rooting for the Seahawks, right?

Oh, one more. If you’re a football fan and looking to kill a little time in a fun way before Sunday night’s game, check out The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz with “Ranking All 50 Super Bowl Quarterback Performances of the 21st Century.”

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Media news, tidbits and interesting links for your weekend review

• The New York Times’ Erik Wemple with “He Was Laid Off at The Washington Post After Working There 60 Years.”
• The Washington Post’s John Woodrow Cox with “Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon.”
• Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton with “As the nation’s eyes turn to Minneapolis, they’re also turning to Minnesota Public Radio.”
• For Columbia Journalism Review, Miranda Green with “How ‘Pink Slime’ Publishers Are Weaponizing FOIA.”
• Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen with “Bill Simmons questions long-term viability of YouTube as a podcast platform.”
• NPR’s Bobby Allyn with “Researchers say no evidence of TikTok censorship, but they remain wary.”
• A powerful piece in The New York Times from Orlando Mayorquín with visuals by Gabriela Bhaskar: “The Long Goodbye: A California Couple Self-Deports to Mexico”
• The Wall Street Journal’s Kris Maher with “Whatever You Do, Don’t Mess With Pittsburgh’s Parking Chairs.”
• Tom Llamas is my guest on the latest “Poynter Report Podcast.” We discuss Llamas’ journey from unpaid intern to one of the most prominent jobs in journalism, the role of the evening news, what it’s like to follow a legend such as Lester Holt and what the day in the life of a network news anchor is like. Aside from watching on YouTube, you can also find the show on Apple, Spotify and most places where you find podcasts.

More resources for journalists

• Get the skills, policies, and editorial support to cover crime with depth, accuracy, and public service in mind. Apply now.
• Amplify your managerial strengths, navigate ethical decision-making and strategize ahead of difficult conversations. Apply by Feb. 13.
• Join a foundational career and leadership development 101 course — fully virtual for ambitious media professionals without direct reports. Apply now.
• Reporters and editors with ambition to do investigative journalism: Get guidance from ProPublica’s Alexandra Zayas in this five-week, hands-on seminar. Enroll today.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

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