Amazon founder and owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, shockingly laid off a third of the paper's staff, NPR reported.

What's happening?

Bezos acquired a then-ailing Washington Post in 2013, at a time when national newspapers struggled to compete with online-only news outlets.

In an August 2013 New York Times article about the sale, newspaper consultant Alan D. Mutter commented about Bezos' interest in the transaction, speculating that the Amazon founder had big plans to revive the now 148-year-old newspaper.

"I believe he's bought the newspaper because he wants to re-envision the enterprise, and The Post is an iconic world brand. He knows something about building iconic world brands," Mutter remarked.

A contemporaneous ABC News report about the sale included commentary by Bezos, who minimized concerns he planned to influence the paper's editorial functions.

At the time, Bezos claimed the Post had "an excellent leadership team that knows much more about the news business than I do."

In late 2024, however, scores of Washington Post readers canceled their subscriptions after Bezos made the controversial decision to intervene in editorial processes, spiking the Editorial Board's endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Four months later, Bezos again influenced the newsroom, reshaping the Post's opinion section to better fit his viewpoints. Again, the paper shed tens of thousands of subscribers.

After more than a year of rapidly dwindling reader trust in the Washington Post, Bezos demanded extensive newsroom cuts, slashing the paper's masthead by a third.

One of the reporters laid off in the recent round of cuts learned of her dismissal while on assignment in war-torn Ukraine, and several of the paper's sections were fully gutted.

Why is this concerning?

When Bezos acquired the Post, one of the United States' oldest and most credible newspapers, journalists warned that he could eventually encroach on the paper's independence.

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In October 2024, Pew reported that the American news industry was in sustained decline, citing "fewer journalists, thinner reporting, and increasingly desperate advertising content" as factors.

In early 2025, Facebook announced the discontinuation of its fact-checking partnerships, enabling misinformation and disinformation to run rampant on the platform again, despite its proven role in amplifying real-world violence.

Bezos' decision to drastically reduce an ever-shrinking pool of working journalists in the U.S. came at a fraught time for the Fourth Estate and would almost certainly diminish the availability of credible reporting.

Former executive editor Marty Baron issued a statement, describing the day of the layoffs as "among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations." 

What's being done about it?

The Washington Post Newspaper Guild planned a demonstration on Feb. 5 to protest the cuts.

In a statement, the Guild asserted that Bezos had the resources to retain staff and demanded a change in ownership.

"These layoffs are not inevitable. A newsroom cannot be hollowed out without consequences for its credibility, its reach and its future," the statement read in part. 

"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, the[n] The Post deserves a steward that will."

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