News & Politics

Actually, the Washington Post Layoffs Were a Bigger Bloodbath Than You Thought

Nearly half of the paper's newsroom was eliminated during last week's cuts—possibly the largest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation.

Written by Paul Farhi | Published on February 9, 2026


Photograph by Daniella Byck.

The layoffs announced last week at the Washington Post were disfiguring to the esteemed news organization, with whole sections and departments—sports, books, staff photography—wiped away, and devastating cuts inflicted on its Metro section and foreign bureaus. But the extent of the damage is actually greater than first reported.

News reports about the layoffs, including this one from the New York Times, generally agreed that about one-third of the Post’s newsroom would be eliminated by the layoffs. However, an accounting by the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, the union that represents Post journalists, finds that the paper’s management eliminated closer to half of the journalists it used to employ.

According to guild steward Sarah Kaplan, a Post Metro reporter, the paper is dropping between 350 and 375 journalists. With the newsroom’s pre-layoff strength at 790 people, that means between 44 percent and 47.5 percent of the newsroom has been axed.

In a dreadful era for journalism jobs, the Post’s bloodbath stands out: last week may have been the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation.

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