Washington Post cuts 30% of staff, guts foreign desk, Mideast team: What to know

The Washington Post is implementing sweeping newsroom layoffs that have gutted its foreign desk, including the elimination of its entire Middle East team, as part of cuts affecting a reported 30% of the newspaper's workforce. 

What happened: The Post is shuttering its sports desk, closing its books section and letting go of all of its staff photographers. The international desk will also shrink dramatically, including the elimination of the outlet's Middle East team. 

In an email sent to Post employees following a live stream during which the reductions were announced, Executive Editor Matt Murray framed the cuts as part of a broader effort to overhaul the newspaper’s direction and output. He said that some aspects of the Post’s journalism, including its use of video, “haven’t kept up,” adding that “the need has never been more urgent to reposition the Post.” He also acknowledged a decline in the paper’s production and reach, adding that the outlet appears to write "from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.” 

A slew of journalists covering the region have said they were laid off, including Cairo Bureau Chief Claire Parker, Jerusalem Bureau Chief Gerry Shih and correspondents Yeganeh Torbati, Louisa Loveluck, Nilo Tabrizy, Loveday Morris, Shira Rubin and Miriam Berger, among others, according to their social media posts. 

The cuts also reached high-profile journalists, including the paper’s Ukraine bureau chief, Siobhan O’Grady; foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor; and Asia-Pacific editor and former Beijing Bureau Chief Anna Fifield.

Why it matters: According to a New York Times report, the company is laying off about 30% of all its employees, including staff on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom. 

The Post’s decision to gut its foreign desk comes as the US confronts rising tensions with Iran, a protracted war in Ukraine and a shifting global balance of power driven by China’s expanding influence, among other pressing international challenges. 

Among the journalists affected were those behind major investigative and visual reporting projects. Nilo Tabrizy and Yeganeh Torbati, both laid off, were part of the team that uncovered the Iran Rasht Bazaar story, along with visual forensics reporters Meg Kelly and Imogen Piper, who have not publicly commented on their own status at the Post. The story, published late last month, reconstructed the narrative on how Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters fleeing a fire in the historic Rasht Bazaar amid the regime's crackdown on protesters. 

In addition, the Washington Post staff was a finalist for a 2025 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, including a 2024 visual forensics report on the Israeli military's killing of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl whose death has become emblematic of the devastating civilian death toll in Gaza since October 2023. 

The Washington Post Newspaper Guild, the union representing Post journalists and other newsroom staff, released a statement on X saying that “a newsroom cannot be hollowed out without consequences for its credibility, its reach and its future.”  

Know more: Under Jeff Bezos’ ownership over the past 13 years, the Washington Post has made changes aimed at reshaping its business strategy, including the appointment of William Lewis in 2023 as CEO, the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal. He was given a mandate to streamline operations and accelerate digital growth as the industry moves away from print.