Longtime WaPo Political Columnist Greg Sargent Is Leaving After Taking Voluntary Buyout

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File

Greg Sargent, a longtime political columnist for The Washington Post and creator of the paper’s Plum Line blog, is leaving after taking a voluntary buyout.

Semafor media reporter Max Tani tweeted a screenshot of the email that was sent to Sargent’s colleagues announcing his departure. In the message, WaPo management credited Sargent for having “helped legions of Post Opinions readers find understand and community during confusing political times” in his columns and blog posts, “which delivered a furious pace of posts providing incisive coverage of the American political scene.”

About an hour later, Sargent followed up with his own post on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.

“Well, looks like the news is out: This is my last week at @washingtonpost,” he wrote, explaining that he was “offered a voluntary buyout and I accepted it.”

In October, an internal email to WaPo staff announced that the paper’s projections for traffic, subscriptions, and advertising had been “overly optimistic” and it was offering buyouts to “approximately 240 people” in order to avoid layoffs.

It’s not known yet what Sargent’s next steps will be, or if he has made a decision yet. He concluded by thanking his colleagues, writing, “My deepest thanks to all the great people at @PostOpinions and the rest of the paper — it was a privilege and an inspiration to work with all of you. More news soon!”

Another high profile WaPo reporter to take the buyout offer was media reporter Paul Farhi, who announced on Dec. 22 he was doing so and had “a few plans” that included “freelancing to the Post.”

–