Tangle - The Washington Post layoffs.

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

On Wednesday, The Washington Post laid off approximately one third of its staff, including hundreds of reporters in its newsroom. Executive Editor Matt Murray announced the cuts to the company, saying its approach required “a new way forward and a sounder foundation.” The layoffs have created uncertainty about the future of the outlet, which has long served as a leading U.S. news source but has recently struggled to retain readers and improve its business model. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!Answering your questions about ICE.The Trump administration’s heightened immigration operations have prompted a flood of questions about how different immigration agencies work, the legality of their tactics, and the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike. In last week’s Friday edition, we tackled the most frequently asked questions about Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, featuring insights from a wide array of experts. You can read it here. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: Who do you think is responsible for layoffs at The Washington Post? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the Washington Post cuts, layoffs, and WAPO, which, you know, is a media story, but not just a media story. I think it's also a story about this moment politically and what's happening all across the country. So we're going to jump in, break it down, share some views from the left and the right, and then I'm going to share my take. Before we jump in, a quick reminder that last week, we answered a bunch of your questions about ICE. In our Friday members homey edition, we went through some of the most frequently asked questions

we've been getting from you about ICE and customs and border protection and DHS. We featured a wide array of expert insight. I thought it was a really awesome edition. And I encourage you to go check it out if you're curious about the legality of their tactics, the differences between ICE and CBP, what they can and can't do to American citizens versus people who are here illegally. All of that, good stuff. It's a great episode and we're really proud of it. All right.

With that, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main topic. And I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Hope y'all had a restful and relaxing weekend. I got to spend some time with family. I'm doing a lot of traveling this month, so as a heads up, you won't hear me on the podcast, probably as much as you normally do.

But I'll be around here and there. Today is one of those days. Tomorrow, somebody else either will or somebody from our incredible editorial staff will be reading for me. Congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks on their glorious Super Bowl victory. Sorry, Pat's fans, you know.

You got six rings. all under Brady, maybe again it'll come back around. Drake May is pretty good. They got a team over there, so great defense on both teams. My question, actually, I don't know how many of you watched the Super Bowl, in particular, the halftime show, which had a bit of controversy around it,

surrounding Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican artist. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what you thought of the performance. Personally, I really loved it. I thought it was beautiful. The music itself was really wonderful, amazing, vibrant, to me, very enjoyable as a musician. and I'm curious what your thoughts are. So feel free to write into me, John at reetangle.com.

That's J-O-N at readtangle.com. And as always, it's a new week. Let's bring the best of ourselves to everything that we do in the hopes of spreading some positivity to those around us and beyond. All right, with all that said, here are your quick hits for today.

First up, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that he does not expect Congress to reach a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security by the end of the week deadline, saying Democrats' demands were unreasonable. Democrats signaled that they will not support a second short-term funding extension for DHS. Number two, the United States in Iran held their first in-person meetings since June 2025 to discuss Iran's nuclear program. President Donald Trump said the meeting produced very good

talks and that the U.S. is demanding Iran agree to no nuclear weapons. Number three, President Trump announced his support for Next Star Media's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna, which would consolidate ownership of approximately 80% of U.S. television stations. Trump previously opposed the deal, but supported it on Saturday as a counter to fake news national TV networks. Number four, British Prime Minister Kier Starmor's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned over backlash to her role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the country's ambassador to the United States. Starmor fired Mandelson in September 2025 over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The controversy renewed after reneous.

recently released files showed Mandelson sent Epstein market-sensitive information during the 2008 global financial crisis and maintained a friendship after Epstein's sex crimes convictions. And number five, Japanese Prime Minister Sanei Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party won a supermajority in Japan's lower house in the country's snap election, allowing it to override the upper house. We have breaking news to bring to you about the Washington Post, my former employer, as it turns out, Will Lewis, the chief executive and publisher of the paper since 2024, has announced that he is stepping down. This comes just a few days after the historic news organization cut about 30 percent of its staff. More than 300 journalists laid off in a move that prompted one former editor, Marty Barron,

to call it one of the, quote, darkest days in the history of the world's greatest news organizations. On Wednesday, the Washington Post laid off approximately one-third of its staff, including hundreds of reporters in its newsroom. Executive editor Matt Murray announced the cuts to the company, saying its approach required a new way forward and a sounder foundation. The layouts have created uncertainty about the future of the outlet, which has long served as a leading U.S. news source, but has recently struggled to retain readers and improve its business model.

For context, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and has overseen significant changes to its news and editorial departments in the past two years. In October 24, CEO and publisher William Lewis announced that the paper would not endorse a presidential candidate, returning to a pre-1976 practice, prompting hundreds of thousands of subscribers to cancel their memberships. In January 2025, the company laid off 4% of its staff in a cost-cutting effort, though the newsroom was not impacted. Then, in February 2025, Bezos announced the editorial board would shift its focus toward personal liberties and free markets, as the Post hired several companies. conservative opinion writers suggesting a concerted right-word editorial shift. In a statement, the Post said that the staff cuts were designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus on delivering the distinctive journalism that sets the Post apart

and, most importantly, engages our customers. Separately, Bezos said the paper has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity, adding, the data will tell us what is valuable and where to focus. The Post Sports and Books sections were eliminated, while its metro section was significantly downsized. Additionally, all of the paper's Middle East correspondence and editors were fired. The Washington Post Guild, which represents many of the outlets newsroom employees, said in a statement, continuing to eliminate workers only stands to weaken the newspaper, drive away readers, and undercut the Post's mission. If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that has defined this paper for generations

and serve the millions who depend on post journalism, then the Post deserves a steward that will. On Saturday, Lewis announced his resignation as CEO and publisher, saying it was the right time to step down. Bezos hired Lewis in 2023 amid the paper's protracted financial difficulties, and he oversaw significant changes to its business and newsroom. The Washington Post Guild criticized Lewis's tenure in response to his announcement, saying his legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution. Today, we'll share perspectives from the left and right on the layoffs at the post, and then Isaac's take.

We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. First, let's start with what the left is saying. The left blames Bezos for the Post struggles, saying he undermined the paper to curry political favor. Some suggest Bezos's stewardship has been both damaging and contradictory. Others see the Post exemplifies the challenges facing modern media. In Slate, Alex Kirchner argued Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post.

Bezos wanted the Post to die because a vigorous, well-sourced Washington Post does not suit his vision for the world or his bottom line. The end of the post is not a matter of journalistic economics, but of Bezos incentives, Kershner wrote. Whatever the post is worth today is immaterial to Bezos's wealth. It's barely even what you'd call a rounding error. Bezos could sustain the post's operating losses for hundreds of lifetimes without even threatening his current wealth,

from his stakes in Amazon, Blue Origin, and who knows what else. A man worth more than $240 billion does not care even a little bit in pure dollar terms, about a $100 million annual loss running a prestige business. Whether or not you think billionaires should be obligated to fund public interest projects, Bezos did not merely rest on his laurels as a legacy paper declined. He accelerated the decline on purpose. Not even Rupert Murdoch has chosen that path. The journal continues to turn out damning reportage on Trump and defend its reporters against threats,

Kershner said. Bezos, who it's worth noting, is married to a former journalist, does not express that view of a free press. He recently had nothing to say when the FBI raided the home of one of his reporters. Bezos has no love for reporting, but lots for sycophancy. In The Verge, Tina Wend said there isn't even a cynical explanation for Jeff Bezos destroying the Washington Post. Bezos, who purchased the legendary publication in 2013, has driven his reputation into the ground by using his vast empire to turn out content designed to make President Donald Trump happy.

Amazon MGM Studio spent $40 million to produce a fawning documentary about Melania Trump, which premiered days before the Post sent out mass layoff notices, when wrote. Bezos's media plays seem self-contradictory. Financing a fawning documentary about Melania Trump does not mesh with owning a media company with a 150-year-old legacy of holding politicians accountable, especially one that famously held Trump accountable during his first administration. The Post, which had grown its digital audience throughout Bezos's ownership, would have immediately attracted buyers. Last year, tech journalist Karas Wisher announced that she and several investors were prepared to purchase the post from Bezos,

but reportedly never heard back from him, when said. There's no clear or logical explanation for why Bezos is going about his supplication, not one that makes financial sense, nor one that immediately furthers his own political standing with Trump, nor one that reaffirms the commitment he once made to protecting the First Amendment. In MS Now, Zishan Aleem wrote, The Washington Post bloodletting symbolizes our great media crisis. Since the advent of the internet, there has rarely been a day of good news about the news industry itself,

but Wednesday's bloodbath feels particularly bleak. What's happening at the Post is the latest example of a billionaire oligarch devastating our information environment, and with it, our democracy, Alim said. Biotech billionaire Patrick Sunshiong is publishing the Los Angeles Times to the right, and the billionaire Ellison family is transforming CBS News into a MAGA-friendly news operation. This is to say nothing of the social media sector, where mega-billionaire Elon Musk wrecked Twitter, meta's weather-vane billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alters algorithms depending on who controls the government,

and TikTok is now partially in the hands of billionaire Trump allies. We are in an acutely dangerous place when huge swaths of the media ecosystem are owned by untouchably rich people. Their primary interest is in enriching themselves using their highly profitable assets, and they possess no obligation to protect democratic norms if it doesn't strike their fancy, O'Hemrode. Most of them are decidedly not in the mood these days. During this authoritarian turn, the capitalist class has found that muzzling political intellectual freedom is a way to curry favor with the president and protect their bottom line. All right, that is up for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right views the post's cuts as a rational

business decision by Bezos. Some argue the paper's left bias is responsible for its downfall. Others say Bezos's attempts to rebrand the outlet were poorly conceived. National Review's editors said Jeff Bezos isn't obligated to subsidize the losses of the Washington Post. Whatever the longer-term future holds for the Washington Post, it is opted for retrenchment in the short run. The Post's coverage horizons have undeniably contracted, and in its present state it is neither fish nor foul as a newspaper. Having dropped both its aspirations to be a leader in national and global news coverage, as well as any local focus on the DC, Maryland, Virginia metro region, it will need to decide what kind of paper it wants to be, the editor's route. The near universal hysteria among media

commentators about the post's layoffs is curiously misplaced. The cries are utterly predictable and notable only for their monolithic nature. Owner Jeff Bezos is truly to blame. Hidden behind the complaint is the implicit idea that the Washington Post is a public good of a higher sort, like a waterworks or highway system. It is not. While the paper has dug itself a large hole in terms of branding, it is under no obligation to continue to bleed money to satisfy the pieties of people who clearly aren't paying to read it, the editors said. It is deeply unfortunate when people lose their jobs, particularly in an industry where there are fewer than ever to go around. But Jeff Bezos is a businessman. He is not required to absorb limitless financial losses, particularly

to maintain an institution whose ideological focus he feels to be misplaced, demanding that he act otherwise reeks of entitlement. In the Daily Signal, David Harsani wrote, don't cry for the Washington Post. It helped destroy media. Over the past decade, the Post has been one of the leading culprits in the collapse of public trust in journalism. The once venerable outlet has spent the past 10 years participating in virtually every dishonest left-wing operation, including giving legitimacy to the Brett Kavanaugh group rape accusations, de-legitimizing the Hunter Biden laptop story, spreading the Gaza genocide lie, covering up Joe Biden's cognitive decline, sliming the Covington children, and countless others, Harsani said.

The Washington Post has been one of the worst offenders of the unsound journalistic practice in which reporters handpick useful partisan experts or scholars to act as opinion-writing proxies. To understand the activist mission of the Post, note that it fired 13 climate change reporters and one reporter whose only job was covering race disparity. Let's not forget either that contemporary fact-checking ruse wherein left-wing opinion columnist play act as arbiters of truth and offer partisan arguments and value judgments under a patina of impartiality was basically invented by the Post, Harsani wrote. Everyone sees the news through the prism of their experiences and worldviews, but there should always be an expectation of factual coverage,

and the Washington Post often failed that low bar. In the dispatch, Nick Categogeo explored the fatal identity crisis of the Washington Post. To all appearances, Jeff Bezos looked at the results of the 2024 election, drew an inference about the trajectory of Americans' political zeitgeist, and concluded that the market, not to mention the Trump-run federal government, would reward a somewhat more right-wing Washington Post, Categosio said. But having kissed off its sizable, hardcore resistance readership, the Post is no longer really competing with the New York Times at this point either.

It's neither fish nor foul, an entity in search of a centrist readership that's receptive enough to right-wing politics to appreciate its new editorial direction, yet also intellectual enough to appreciate the thoughtful commentary for which a newspaper of the Post's caliber is known. The reason right-wing sloppaganda exists to begin with is because the audience to which it caters despised and, distrusted left-leaning establishment media like The Washington Post, the paper that brought down Richard Nixon, Catechio wrote. And so, the Bezos Post's task in attracting Trump-era Republican

readers isn't a mere matter of providing content that might tear them away from the latest Tucker interview with a Holocaust revisionist or whatever. Its task is to overcome a degree of fear and loathing of the mainstream media that's downright foundational to the modern rights identity. How was that supposed to happen exactly? All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for the left and the writer saying, which brings us to my take. When I was a kid, my dad used to read me at the Washington Post almost every morning at the breakfast table. He and my mom both grew up in the D.C. area, so the paper was a staple of my household, especially the sports section. As a ravenous Redskins, now commanders football fan,

I remember running downstairs first thing in the morning to hear how the post sports writers covered the previous day's games and try to memorize stats from the box score to throw up my friends. I remember listening to my parents sigh and huff and yell at the paper while reading various stories from the news section. I credit those mornings for my love not just of sports, but writing and journalism more broadly, and I'm sure they had something to do with my first journalism job as a sports reporter at the Pitt News. All these years later, I still have old copies of special post papers and storage, including the editions that are you. came out the days after the Redskins won their three Super Bowl championships, which my dad held

onto and then passed down to me. Even in this era of newspapers dying left and right, the sports section, the metro section, and so many international reporters getting jettison from the Washington Post is genuinely hard to fathom. It doesn't just feel like the end of an era. It feels closer to the end of an industry. All of this is just to say that I'm personally sad about this news. I'm sad for the journalists who lost their jobs, many of whom are normal people making working-class salaries. I'm sad for the reporters, now stuck in war zones whose colleagues are resorting to go-fund me to give them a helping hand. I'm nostalgic for my childhood and mournful for all the column inches I'll never get to read to my own son when we're hopefully bonding over commander's

football in the next few years. Yet for me, that sadness isn't turning into classist anger at Jeff Bezos. Peter Baker, the New York Times chief Washington correspondent shared a post on X, saying that Bezos has a net worth of $249.4 billion, and he could absorb five years of the post $100 million in losses with what he makes in a single week. Putting aside that Bezos doesn't make his net worth every year, if a normal person like me could pay, say, $500 to save the Washington Post, wouldn't that be worth the cost? I think, yes, of course, that'd be worth it. I could easily use this framing to make Bezos look like a bad, selfish guy for not subsidizing a failing business.

And let's be honest, that's the ask of him here. But what if I had to keep buying the post for $500 every year, for 10 years, only for the paper to continue to lose money and fail to adapt? Would that be worth it? And again, what feels like $500 to me is actually $100 million. $1. Think of how many better things that money could be put to use for other than propping up a failing business. That's just about the entire annual expense for Washington, D.C.'s largest food bank. Bezos already sends a great portion of his wealth to charity. He also spends a great deal on frivolous vanity, but whatever he'd choose to do with the money he's losing on the post is hypothetical.

Those losses, however, are stubbornly real. Asking Bezos to perpetually shoulder this cost would be one thing if the posts were a new startup with a clear growth trajectory, but we're talking about a 148-year-old institution that's been struggling for some time now. Not many people aside from journalists and tech bros think it's okay to expect a wealthy backer to continually float their ventures for $100 million without a clear growth plan. That's not just an unrealistic expectation of the market.

It's a childish and naive expectation of life. If there's a lesson here, it's not that Bezos is selfish. It's that it's unwise to bet the sustainability of a newspaper on the generosity of a billionaire rather than great coverage in a strong business plan. Others say Bezos isn't killing the Post through selfish apathy, but some combination of incompetence and greed. Ashley Parker, a reporter whom I respect a great deal, penned a peace in the Atlantic titled The Murder of the Washington Post. Like me, Parker has her own moving personal tale of a childhood attachment to the Post.

Unlike me, she got to live it out when she became a post reporter as an adult. But her story, despite being latent with some classist anger itself, does not depict a premeditated killing of the paper. If anything, it speculates loosely about whether incompetence or intention is behind its downfall, even as she herself admits she doesn't know the answer to the paper's financial woes. For years, the Post's challenge has been trying to be everything at once. It's a DC insider paper and an international news. newsroom and an outlet for local issues, all adjacent to an editorial board focused on national politics. I agree with Parker's diagnosis that the Post should have doubled down on continued

coverage of Washington, its politics, but also its sports and local issues. Yet I understand how that plan may not have seemed appealing to corporate executives looking at raw numbers. International news is expensive and local news is limited, but national politics is irresistible. The Post leadership choosing the widest lane is not the same as first-degree homicide. Former Post reporter Kathleen Boyle pointed out on X that when Bezos took over the paper, it was already struggling, bleeding subscribers and attempting a rebrand. For more than a decade, Bezos injected the paper with cash. He tried to expand its offerings, invested in its technology,

and housed the paper in a refurbished headquarters, basically emulating money in an effort to save an institution of journalism. That story is less appealing than the eat-the-rich narrative of an anti-democracy billionaire who doesn't care if the paper dies, but it's probably more accurate. Why would he buy it in the first place if he doesn't care about the institution? In fact, the Post-owned readers are just as responsible as Bezos or Lewis for the paper's financial hit. Less we forget, in 2024, more than 250,000 Washington Post subscribers canceled their subscriptions

over the paper's decision to stop endorsing presidential candidates. At its standard rate of about $140 per year, that's $35 million in annual revenue eliminated because subscribers wanted to protest what, in my view, is actually a pretty reasonable editorial decision to avoid accusations of partisanship. How many of the same readers who canceled their subscriptions over that decision are now upset to see the paper shutting down departments and laying off journalists? At the same time, the Post does not seem to be winning back the trust of the conservative readers its changes we're trying to appeal to. David Harsani, under what the right is saying,

laid out the conservative view on the paper's mistakes and bias, and while some examples are stronger than others, there's no doubt the Post efforts seem to have alienated its liberal readers while not meaningfully moving the needle to win back the conservative ones. So yes, the Post story is a sad one, but it isn't a story of avarice. It's a story of change, changing dynamics in the market where advertising dollars and subscriptions don't flow as freely anymore, in a changing environment for news, from dogged, scrappy journalists to filter-faced TikTokers and Instagram influencers. Within that broader story is a smaller one of one institution's inability to adapt,

a struggling paper, failed leadership, bad hires, poor decision-making, and insufficient plans to meet the moment. So I don't see a murder or an evil rich guy killing a national treasure. I see a death from natural causes. We can more ensure, but let's not peg this on the people who actually tried to help. All right, that is it for my take. I'm sending it over to managing editor Ari Weissman,

who has a staff dissent today. This is Tangles Managing Editor Ari Weizman here with a staff dissent for today's edition. Yes, the compounding annual losses at the Washington Post are the result of years of failure. And focusing on Bezos alone would be my office. However, Bezos certainly owns a good deal of the responsibility for the post's failures. One of the country's richest people, obviously thumbing the editorial scale on his paper,

was obviously going to produce a backlash, and his intervention was conspicuously unpaired with a complementary strategy. Bezos also was the one who expanded the newsroom in the early years and pushed the paper to a national focus. He's not cunning legacy bloat here. It's his own. And finally, Bezos is the executive. chair of Amazon? Why is the Post not a leader in tech coverage? And where's the savvy strategy befitting a modern business titan like Bezos? So similar to Isaac, I think the comparatively small to Bezos losses at the Post every year aren't his burden to bear. However, I also think the Post

would be better incentivized to adapt and survive under another owner, one whose focus is less split and to whom those losses don't quite feel so tolerable. That's it for my staff dissent. I'll send it back to Isaac and John for the rest of the pod. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, thank you, Ari. We're skipping today's reader question. So it's back to John for the rest of the pod. And I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the radar story for today, folks. On Thursday, the Office of Personnel management issued a final rule that will create an easier pathway for career officials in the

federal government to be disciplined or fired. The rule establishes a new category of work for high-ranking career employees whose work focuses on implementing the executive branch's policies. These workers will now be excluded from longstanding job protections for federal employees. Specifically, workers under the new classification will no longer be able to appeal disciplinary actions, suspensions, or firings to an independent board, enabling the president to remove employees involved in policymaking perceived to be in opposition to the administration's agenda. Approximately 50,000 workers could be affected by the new rule. The Wall Street Journal has this story and there's a link in today's episode description.

And last but not least, R.S. Have a Nice Day story. In 2022, Leovisigil Ramirez lost his dog, Cipi, when she ran away while Ramirez was bringing groceries into his house. Four years later in January, the animal care and control team took in a stray dog and discovered via a microchip that it had been reported missing in the area years earlier. The chip identified her as Cipi, and the rescue service contacted Ramirez to tell him she had been found. Ramirez had since moved to Wisconsin, but drove 16 hours through a major snowstorm to reunite with his dog.

That was incredible, Ramirez said. She is my best friend. UPI has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to readtangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Moll, signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul,

and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.