Inside one of the ‘darkest days in the history’ of The Washington Post

As sweeping layoffs gutted the staff, journalists and former leaders asked whether the paper still has the vision, and investment, to survive

“We’re witnessing a murder.”

That’s how Ashley Parker, a staff writer for The Atlantic and former star reporter at The Washington Post, described what happened at the Post on Wednesday.

A third of the Post’s staff — about 300 journalists — was laid off. Nearly all departments were affected. The sports and books desks were pretty much eliminated. The foreign desk was gutted. My Poynter colleague, Angela Fu, has the details here.

And so Parker wrote, “Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.”