As you likely know by now, the Washington Post recently saw large layoffs. It was not that cuts occurred that was so surprising; after all, journalism is an expensive endeavour, and even premier publications have struggled.
What was shocking was the sheer scale of cuts, as reports suggest that roughly thirty percent of all Washington Post employees were made redundant. A foreign correspondent was fired in the middle of reporting from a war zone in Ukraine. The entire sports contingency was let go right before the Winter Olympics, after transport and hotels were already paid.
This is an enormous decline in the number of journalists at one of the most storied and important global news organisations. Whilst the impact of such a major reduction is clearly going to be significant for the news-consuming public, there are also dramatic impacts for PR and communications professionals.
Fewer journalists, with same (or increasing) amounts of news
The most immediate impact to PR professionals will be the most basic. With fewer journalists, there will be less coverage of original reporting. Of 800 journalists in the Washington Post newsroom, 300 were cut, a nearly 40 percent (37.5%) reduction.
Although The Post’s executive editor Matt Murray said that all of the paper’s sections would be affected, the biggest cuts appear to be to the sports, metro, and international reporting divisions. The book section was shuttered completely, all staff photographers were let go, and most of its technology and business section’s reporters were laid off.
Clearly, if your work involves garnering earned media coverage in high-reach publications, it just got a lot harder—particularly if your clients are in any of the sectors that saw the deepest cuts.
More challenging pitching
Securing earned media in a premier publication like The Washington Post has always been difficult. The high profile, sophisticated reader base, and award-winning journalism made it a top target for pitching.
With a dramatically reduced staff and modified focus, PR professionals will have to rethink when, how, and what they pitch to The Post.
The challenges don’t stop there. Although it made less of a splash than the Post’s layoffs, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of America’s oldest newspapers, announced back in January that it would cease operations in May, 2026.
With each publication closure or round of layoffs, the media outreach lists PR professionals build are getting shorter and shorter. And that means that all the pitches that used to go to these publications will likely need to go elsewhere, clogging the inboxes of those who remain.
Business relationships with reporters are now even more valuable. Pitching the right content at the right moment and not wasting their time is paramount.
There is likely to be less depth in coverage
With fewer reporters, it remains to be seen how decisions will be made about what to cover and how much support to put behind any given beat or individual story. Regardless, with fewer reporters, they will be stretched thin.
Many of The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded in the Investigative Reporting category. Often the result of months of research and comprehensive legal review prior to publishing, investigative reporting is time-consuming, labour-intensive, and expensive.
It is reasonable to ask if such resources are now even available. Cost-cutting measures and pressure to generate clicks will not support deep reporting.
Trusted PR professionals may be able to contribute here, in the form of providing more documentary support when pitching, for instance.
Will AI be used to fill portions of coverage? Sports reporting could be reduced to artificial intelligence assessment of recorded coverage, potentially. Although this could satisfy a strict “what happened on field” reporting of events, human nuance would be lost.
Reliability and trust
The trust issue cuts in several directions. Will readers continue to consider the Post’s reporting reliable? For those who subscribed to read local metro or sports coverage, will they remain subscribers, or will they find other sources, compounding the decline?
Do the remaining reporters trust their organisation, or are they thinking, “will I be next?” Morale amongst the reporting staff must be low. Anyone who survives a force reduction knows that the workload of those remaining typically increases; pay does not.
From the standpoint of the PR professional, these aspects are potentially problematic to producing results for clients. If audience trust in the publication declines, that is an issue. If demoralised reporters struggle with increased workloads, that is an issue.
Jobs…
PR professionals still reeling from Omnicom’s post-merger layoffs of 4,000 employees know that the job market for communicators right now is tough.
An influx of trained, professional writers with contacts at The Washington Post into the job search process, particularly in Washington, D.C. (but also elsewhere), just made that job search a bit harder.
It is of course too soon to tell what the long-term impact of these layoffs will be. But it is clear that PR professionals will be affected by this significant loss of talent at one of the most recognised and respected newspapers in the world.
