The Washington Put up shuttered its venerable sports activities division on Wednesday, half of a bigger layoff involving one-third of the newspaper’s employees.
“The Washington Put up is taking plenty of troublesome however decisive actions as we speak for our future, in what quantities to a major restructuring throughout the corporate,” a Put up spokesperson mentioned in an announcement. “These steps are designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our deal with delivering the distinctive journalism that units The Put up aside and, most significantly, engages our prospects.”
Govt editor Matt Murray introduced the adjustments in a video convention with staff.
The transfer comes with Put up reporters already on web site overlaying Tremendous Bowl LX and the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
“It is like any individual taking a hammer to my coronary heart,” Sally Jenkins, who wrote a Put up sports activities column till she left the paper final summer time, informed The Ringer. “It isn’t simply damaged. It is damaged into about 20 items, one for each single one among my shut associates there.”
Some sports activities reporters are anticipated to maneuver into different roles, however the precise quantity was not reported.
A skeleton crew will proceed to provide what Murray described as options about sports activities as a “cultural and societal phenomenon.”
The Put up has undergone repeated adjustments, downsizings and reinventions since Amazon chief Jeff Bezos bought the paper in 2013.
Along with slicing the sports activities pages, the Put up is lowering its worldwide footprint, making the Metro part extra “nimble and centered” and eliminating the Books part.
–Subject Stage Media
