Sweeping layoffs at The Washington Post will do 'enormous damage,' former editor says

Geoff Bennett:

The Washington Post is laying off a third of its work force across both the newsroom and its business operations, a massive blow at a storied newspaper that has struggled in recent years to stay profitable and retain subscribers. The cuts reportedly affect more than 300 of the approximately 800 journalists in the newsroom and include eliminating its sports desk and books section entirely.

The Post's executive editor said the changes, though painful, were meant to -- quote -- "reinvent the paper for a new era."

For more on these cuts and their implications, we're joined now by Marty Baron, who was the editor of The Washington Post from 2012 until 2021.

Welcome back to the "News Hour."

Marty Baron, Former Executive Editor, The Washington Post:

Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

You have described this as among the darkest days in The Post's history. What do these layoffs mean for the paper's mission and its ability to continue doing in-depth, substantial reporting?

Marty Baron:

Well, I think it's important to keep in mind just how widespread these cuts are, not only the sports desk, the books department, but pretty much the entire arts department, eviscerating the foreign staff, largely eviscerating the local staff as well.

So these are huge, huge cuts, and they're going to be -- they're going to do enormous damage to the newspaper's ability to cover its community, to cover the country, and to cover the world in all the ways that it should.

Geoff Bennett:

The executive editor, Matt Murray, said today that the paper's structure was built for a different era and that refocusing on what he calls these core coverage areas like politics and national security will help The Post better navigate technological change, shifting audience habits, cost pressures.

Do you buy that argument?

Marty Baron:

Well, I think Matt is doing a really good job as editor of The Post. The Post is doing extraordinary journalism every single day. And I commend them for that. I admire what they're doing.

That said, they have announced -- they seem to have announced a new strategy just about once a year now, saying that it would better position themselves for the future. And none of those things have worked. I don't think what they're doing now helps position them for the future. It diminishes the brand. It diminishes the coverage. It offers less to their readers.

They're going to have fewer subscribers as a result of this, probably not more. So I understand why Matt is saying that. He has to say something positive about what's happening. But I don't think there's very much positive to say.

Geoff Bennett:

You served as editor under Jeff Bezos back in 2013 when he purchased the paper and pledged long-term investment and support for the newsroom. What do you make of what appears to be a shift in both his relationship to the paper and his willingness to invest in its future?

Marty Baron:

Well, he was great at the beginning, and for a long time, as a matter of fact. He set out a vision for The Post to be national and international, as opposed to regional, which it was largely before. He invested heavily in The Post. We innovated tremendously over the years. We grew tremendously as well, practically doubling the staff.

And we were profitable for about six straight years. And so that was a lot of progress. He was proud of it. He spoke proudly of it. And so now we're seeing a diminished outlook. And I think that he became sort of detached in about 2019, when his marriage broke up, when Amazon was struggling later in 2020, when the -- Amazon was struggling with the pandemic and all the aspects of that.

And then I think he really became -- took a real turn after it looked like Trump was going to be elected president yet again. And that was in 2024. And 11 days before the presidential election in 2024, they killed an editorial for -- that was endorsing Kamala Harris. He said the paper wouldn't endorse ever again for president.

And hundreds of thousands of subscribers canceled at that time, aggravating the financial problems that they had. Subsequent to that, he did all sorts of things that made things even worse, appearing at the inauguration on the stage with Donald Trump, buying the Melania so-called documentary for an exorbitant price, buying the right -- Amazon buying the rights to "The Apprentice."

And Amazon had bought the rights to Melania's documentary as well. And then completely changing the opinion pages so that essentially they have no columnists who are really left of center. And they're very deferential to Trump. And I think they lack a moral core.

And so all of that has driven subscribers away. And so for every subscriber that they get coming in through the front door because of the high-quality news coverage, I think they're losing maybe two subscribers out the back door. Of course, I don't know the numbers exactly, but clearly they have been losing a lot of subscribers.

Geoff Bennett:

Why does an institution like The Washington Post matter at this moment in particular?

Marty Baron:

Look, I think it's the reason that every news organization matters. It's an organization.

I think the role of a news organization is to give the public the information it needs and deserves to know so that they can govern themselves. The Washington Post has a long history of that, and particularly of holding the government to account, keeping a close eye on government.

That happened, of course, during Watergate. I think we did that when I was editor on the first round of the -- Trump's time in the White House, his first term. And they continue to do that today. I think they're doing a tremendous job of that. People need to know what's happening in their government. They need to know what's happening in the corridors of power, whether in government or in business or in nonprofits or wherever it might be.

And they need to know what's happening around the world. So if you don't have reporters around the world, you're not going to know what's happening. And we need more than one news organization doing that. We need multiple news organizations doing that.

So, look, the press is built into our democracy. It is provided for in the First Amendment to the Constitution because the founders understood that you needed an institution that would keep watch on government. And James Madison, who was the principal author of that amendment, talked about the need for freely examining public characters and measures.

We are not stenographers and we should not be propagandists. And that is the role that The Washington Post has historically played, and that's the role that it should continue to play.

Geoff Bennett:

Marty Baron, thank you for your time this evening. We appreciate it.

Marty Baron:

Thank you.