High sports activities journalists from ESPN to Fox Sports activities blasted the Washington Publish and proprietor Jeff Bezos on-line over a report the newspaper is planning to decimate its sports activities desk.
Information of potential “large layoffs” at WaPo came to visit the weekend as administration knowledgeable staffers that it was abruptly scrapping its deliberate protection of the 2026 Winter Olympics two weeks earlier than the opening ceremony.
The paper is planning to chop as much as 300 staff, specializing in sections like sports activities that haven’t seen sufficient demand, the information website Puck reported.
The paper now plans to ship a small crew of reporters to cowl the Olympic Video games, based on the New York Instances – however journos are nonetheless panicking over the likelihood that the paper’s sports activities desk may very well be eradicated.
ESPN baseball columnist Jeff Passan mourned the potential finish of the WaPo’s sports activities desk, which he known as “the most effective sports activities part within the nation,” in a Tuesday put up on X.
“Solely a soulless company goon would suppose the paper is best with out it. A brief-sighted, cowardly determination. Disgrace is your legacy,” Passan wrote.
A number of different sports activities journalists, like Fox Sports activities baseball broadcaster Ken Rosenthal, took fiery goal at Bezos.
“I’m extremely saddened about what is occurring on the Washington Publish. Going again to my time on the Baltimore Solar, I’ve admired and envied the Publish’s writers, and never simply in sports activities,” Rosenthal wrote in a put up on X.
“Jeff Bezos’ destruction of an ideal newspaper will likely be a part of his legacy. #SaveThePost.”
Grant Paulsen, a sports activities radio broadcaster, known as “the Bezos possession” – which began in 2013, when the Amazon founder purchased WaPo for $250 million – an “abomination.”
“Anyone who would enable the Washington Publish to eliminate its sports activities part shouldn’t have something to do with working the paper,” Paulsen wrote in a Monday put up on X.
Brianna Schroer, a senior designer on the Washington Publish, additionally spoke out.
“Designing sports activities has been the spotlight of my time at The Washington Publish and I’d be devastated if I used to be now not in a position to try this,” she tweeted Monday.
Ben Portnoy, a university sports activities reporter for Sports activities Enterprise Journal, known as an finish to WaPo’s sports activities desk “heartbreaking and extremely short-sighted.”
“As a child rising up in NW DC, I’m not being hyperbolic once I say I learn the Washington Publish sports activities web page each single morning from the time I might decipher a field rating,” Portnoy wrote.
“As I received older, I graduated to the precise tales. These tales and that sports activities part genuinely modified my life – and are an enormous motive why I grew to become a sportswriter within the first place.”
Tim Rohan, sports activities editor and author at NBC Information, additionally sounded off in a Tuesday tweet.
“The @washingtonpost sports activities part is significant to the sports activities panorama. They write definitive options. They do necessary investigations. Their proficient employees covers each main story, main sport,” he wrote.
Freelance sports activities journalist Joon Lee bashed the choice as “shortsighted in a world the place sports activities is changing into extra politically & culturally influential.”
WaPo didn’t instantly reply to The Publish’s request for remark.
