(AP Photo/John Locher, File)
The sweeping job cuts that Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos supported led to more than 60,000 customers canceling their digital subscriptions last month, according to a report from The New York Times on Saturday.
The story — titled “How Jeff Bezos Upended the Washington Post” — looked at how the Amazon founder has played a larger role at his paper in recent years.
Bezos was able to convince executive editor Matt Murray to stick around late last year and handle hundreds of job cuts alongside then-CEO and publisher Will Lewis, according to the report.
WaPo ended up laying off roughly 350 reporters out of 800 in February — accounting for 44% of its journalists. “The sports and books departments were folded, and the metro section was gutted,” The Times reported. “Most international correspondents and editors were laid off.”
In response, more than 60,000 digital subscribers ditched the paper in the week following the job cuts, according to the NYT report.
WaPo offers a $40 per year digital-only subscription on the low end of its subscription offerings currently, meaning those canceled subscriptions would account for $2.40 million in annual revenue if you used a conservative estimate.
Bezos had put the plan in motion to cut jobs in late 2025, as the paper was grappling with an annual loss of $100 million.
“[He] stays out of the paper’s day-to-day operations, as he always has. He has not shown up in the newsroom since 2023,” the report said on Saturday. “But he has dipped in more forcefully in the past two years, resulting in a series of jarring upheavals in strategy and leadership at one of the country’s most decorated news organizations.”
Lewis quit in February, just days after the job cuts were announced. The reported “last straw” for Lewis was Bezos seeing him partying at the Super Bowl right after the layoffs, which other senior WaPo staffers felt was “callous.”
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet “Newsletter of Newsletters”
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
