Washington Post: Sports section eliminated ahead of Olympic Winter Games

US newspaper The Washington Post is making a third of its staff redundant, bosses at the title have said.

The long-rumoured layoffs, affecting almost all areas of the newsroom, were confirmed to employees in a video conference on Wednesday.

Afterwards, they received emails with one of two subject lines - telling them their role was either going or being kept.

Among the departments being scrapped is the sports section, along with several foreign bureaus and the newspaper's books coverage.

In a note to staff, executive editor Matt Murray called the move painful but necessary to put it on a stronger footing and weather changes in technology and user habits, telling them the Post "can't be everything to everyone".

Mr Murray said: "Significantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years", adding: "And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience."

The layoff comes days after the more than 145-year-old newspaper scaled back its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics amid mounting financial losses.

Claire Parker, the paper's Cairo bureau chief, announced her redundancy on X, along with all of the newspaper's Middle East correspondents and editors, saying it was "hard to understand the logic".

Some, including former editor Martin Baron, criticised owner Jeff Bezos.

Mr Baron, the Post's first editor under the Amazon founder, said his former boss was guilty of "a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction".

Margaret Sullivan, a journalism professor and former columnist at the Post and The New York Times, said the layoffs were "devastating news for anyone who cares about journalism in America and, in fact, the world.

"The Washington Post has been so important in so many ways, in news coverage, sports and cultural coverage."

Mr Bezos, who has not commented, has typically had a hands-off approach to the paper's editorial policy since he bought the Post in 2013.

But this appeared to change during last year's US presidential election when he blocked the Post's editorial board from publishing an endorsement for Donald Trump's rival Kamala Harris.

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At 8pm UK time (3pm, Washington time), there was no mention of the layoffs on the paper's home page or media index page, nor had they been announced on the title's X account.

The Post is renowned for its coverage of the Watergate Scandal in the early 1970s, leading to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon.

(c) Sky News 2026: Washington Post: Sports section eliminated ahead of Olympic Winter Games