The Washington Post Gave Up on Diverse Coverage Well Before Layoffs

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, staffers of color have been frustrated by supervisors’ lack of enthusiasm—and the paper’s diminishing resources—for their work. 

In early February, the Washington Post made the shocking decision to lay off nearly half its newsroom (more than the third that the Post originally acknowledged), including reporters covering race, ethnicity, and communities of color. Half of the Post’s unionized members who identify as Hispanic or Latino were let go, according to the Washington Post Newspaper Guild, along with 45 percent of Black members and 43 percent of Asian members. By comparison, just 37 percent of white guild members lost their jobs. “When these layoffs took place, and I saw the gravity, and then I saw some of the names—including myself—diversity was the first thing on my mind, like ‘God, this is going to be really bad,’ because the numbers were already trending in the wrong direction,” Michael Brice-Saddler, an outgoing metro reporter, who is Black, told me.

The Post’s decision to cut so many staffers of color, many of whom cover diverse communities, is in line with recent media layoffs that have hit journalists of color particularly hard. Last fall, staffers of color were let go, and teams covering race and ethnicity were disbanded, at outlets including CBS, NBC, and Teen Vogue, part of a larger cultural and political shift away from diversity goals and public commitments to equity in the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in 2020. “A certain kind of prevailing dispensation came into power last year and just wanted to take a hammer to things in Washington,” another laid-off Post journalist, who asked not to be named because they are still considered an employee until April, said. “And we are one of those things that they have taken a hammer to in a certain way.”