‘Save the Post’: Staff plead with Bezos to protect The Washington Post from cuts
Across the globe, journalists from The Washington Post are pleading with owner Jeff Bezos to save their jobs — and to keep the newspaper alive and healthy.
In a movement on social media, the Post’s foreign correspondents have flooded X with messages with the hashtag #SaveThePost, asking Bezos to forestall rumored deep cuts to the paper’s reporting ranks.
Rumors have circulated that The Post’s foreign and sports departments are at risk, with some staff expecting to get cut as soon as February, according to The Guardian. Now, those staff members are sharing why their jobs are crucial to the paper and its readers in an era when fact-based reporting, especially from hot spots around the world, is threatened by economic uncertainty.
International correspondents “risk our safety to investigate authoritarian governments, report from gang-controlled towns and document evidence of stolen elections,” Samantha Schmidt, The Post’s Mexico City bureau chief, wrote. “This on-the-ground reporting is more critical than ever.”
Yeganneh Torbati, who covers Turkey and Iran, told Bezos that, just since June, she has reported on military strikes by the U.S. and Israel and government violence against protesters, among other developments. “I want nothing more than to keep doing this important work,” she wrote.
“Today a source warned me that my reporting lines could have me killed,” Mideast correspondent Loveday Morris wrote. “Just an average day as a foreign correspondent. I can’t count the number of times I’ve come under fire or had windows rattle from blasts. Our international staff risk so much to bring home news.”
Major cuts
The pleas come despite official confirmation of cuts across the news organization, which Bezos purchased in 2013 for $250 million. The Post reportedly lost about $100 million in 2025.
The Guardian reports that staffers at The Post have tossed around estimates that at least 100 roles would be cut, representing more than 10% of the newsroom. Other reports suggest as many as 300 jobs will be eliminated across the organization. However, no one knows when or even if these cuts are coming.
On Sunday, prior to taking to social media, approximately 60 members of the foreign staff sent a letter to Bezos urging him to change course.
“We urge you to consider how the proposed layoffs will certainly lead us first to irrelevance — not the shared success that remains attainable,” the staffers wrote in the letter, according to The New York Times.
The staffers noted that when newspapers slash international sections, “they lose reach and they lose relevance.”
Bezos and top management at The Post have not commented.
Sports department changes
The international department may not be the only one at risk. On Friday, staffers in the sports department received a memo from Kimi Yoshino, the managing editor, stating that the paper would not send anyone to Italy to cover the Winter Olympics.
Previously, The Post sent about 10 to 20 newsroom employees to cover the Olympics, according to The Times. Despite reportedly spending $80,000 on accommodations, similar plans for this year were out the window. On Monday, however, newsroom managers said they would send a small team to Italy.
In addition to the Olympics, The Post also told its two beat reporters covering the Washington Nationals not to book travel for spring training. It also informed the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics that it would no longer send reporters on the road to cover the teams.
The reasoning? No one knows.
As of Tuesday, The Post has not issued statements on cuts, but it appears to be making changes across departments.
“It’s all very confusing and no one knows anything,” one Post staffer told The Guardian. “The anxiety is so sad.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
