Yesterday, The Washington Post laid off about one third of its newsroom. All departments were affected, but some sections were eliminated entirely. The sports department, which includes beat reporters for the Washington Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, Commanders, Nationals, Spirit, DC United — you get the picture, was eliminated entirely as we know it.
If the local professional sports’ teams coverage are gone, their stellar local high school sports coverage, like covering which schools have the best high school football
programs or the best boys basketball or girls basketball programs.
Some of the most notable basketball reporters on The Washington Post have been laid off. First, former Wizards beat reporter and now columnist Candace Buckner made her announcement.
Mystics beat reporter Kareem Copeland was laid off too.
And Ben Golliver, The Washington Post’s national NBA reporter was also not spared.
Going forward, the Post’s sports coverage will be primarily focused on society and culture pieces instead of game results and analysis.
Other sections have been eliminated like the Metro section where The Washington Post covered local events in D.C. area neighborhoods. And international coverage will be a fraction of what it was.
The layoffs are part of the changing nature of journalism today. Traditional newspapers, even in a web and internet-based environment, aren’t thriving. So the easiest thing to cut are the people who work those beats. Also, we are living in a world where people are also consuming news from non-traditional outlets. Personalities are becoming the way people consume and listen to news. Folks like Stephen A. Smith and Chris Cuomo have shows on ESPN and NewsNation, respectively. But both also have thriving podcast networks they run on their own in the sports/culture and political spheres respectively.
This makes former Washington Post Wizards beat reporter Varun Shankar’s X post about leaving the newspaper foreshadowing from hindsight.
Shankar is now the Houston Rockets’ beat reporter for The Houston Chronicle.
I feel very bad for The Washington Post reporters who lost their jobs yesterday. Nothing I write here is going to change that. And these layoffs are also part of a larger trend, even beyond journalism. The sports journalism world is unfortunately worse without The Washington Post being part of the picture.
