Shocked, Shocked! Bezos Destroys WP Climate Reporting Team - 14 Of 19 Reporters On That Beat Are Now Gone

[hatrack]

The Washington Post produced some of America’s finest climate journalism over the last decade, aggressively covering President Trump’s regulatory rollbacks and winning a Pulitzer Prize for a series about Earth’s fastest-warming places. Alongside the New York Times and the Associated Press, I don’t think any U.S. news outlet published a greater volume of urgent, high-quality climate and clean energy coverage.

Everything changed on Wednesday morning. The Post sent layoff notices to at least 14 climate journalists, newsroom sources told me, part of a massive round of cost-cutting that will see more than 300 journalists lose their jobs — about 30% of all employees at the Jeff Bezos-owned company. The climate team layoffs include eight writer/reporters, an editor and several video, data and graphics journalists, I’m told. I’m not publishing their names, since many of them haven’t discussed their situations publicly. But to see the invaluable work they and their colleagues have been doing, check out the Post’s climate page here.

After the layoffs, the Post will have five writer/reporters left on its climate desk, by my sources’ count, and possibly a few other journalists. That’s a far cry from the sweeping vision that then-executive editor Sally Buzbee unveiled in 2022, when she announced a major expansion of the outlet’s climate coverage. She said the Post “has long been a leader in covering the climate and environment” and would nearly triple the size of its climate team to more than 30 journalists.

Buzbee called global warming “perhaps the century’s biggest story.” “No story is more global than climate, and we are placing reporters across the country and the world to capture it as it unfolds. At the same time, we are reimagining climate journalism to be more visual and accessible, bringing on trusted voices and some of the world’s best visual journalists to tell stories in intimate, visceral ways that we hope will both inform and empower you,” she wrote.

EDIT

https://www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/washington-post-climate-bezos

[NNadir]

1. The WP is destroyed in totality.