Bob Woodward Warns Massive Layoffs Will Hurt WaPo Readers, Promises to Fight For His ‘Professional Home’

AP Photo, Andrew Harnik

In a Friday X post, Bob Woodward, the associate editor of The Washington Post, warned that the paper’s latest massive layoffs will hurt readers, promising that he plans to fight for his “professional home.”

Woodward, who started working for The Post in 1971, wrote, “The Washington Post has been my professional home for 55 years. I believe in it. I love it. I am crushed that so many of my beloved colleagues have lost their jobs and our readers have been given less news and sound analysis,” adding that readers “deserve more.”

On Wednesday, during a staff-wide meeting with executive editor Matt Murray, it was announced that the paper would cut about 300 jobs — about one-third of its total workforce — with sports coverage hit particularly hard.

“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming a more crowded, competitive, and complicated media landscape,” said Murray during the layoffs announcement call.

Referencing Murray, Woodward wrote that under his leadership, “there have been many superb and excellent ground-breaking stories,” emphasizing that “there will be more.”

“I will do everything in my power to help make sure The Washington Post thrives and survives,” he concluded.

In 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the paper for $250 million. According to former executive editor Marty Baron, in a Wednesday statement against the layoffs, Bezos once spoke “forcefully and eloquently of a free press.” Today, he said, “There is no sign of it.”

“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” added Baron.

Just before the 2024 presidential election, it was announced that the paper would not endorse a candidate. The decision, which came from Bezos himself, marked a sharp departure from long-standing practice and resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of subscriptions.

At the time, Woodward and fellow Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein called the decision “disappointing.”

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