Washington Post top editor admits morale issues plagued paper long before brutal layoffs

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray admitted he has work to do to boost morale at the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" paper after the company laid off hundreds of staffers Wednesday. 

The Post announced during a somber Zoom webinar it is shuttering the sports desk in its current form, dialing back its international coverage, shrinking its Metro staff and eliminating its books section in a layoff round that affected one-third of the company. Staffers are stunned and upset, but Murray doesn't believe those feelings are anything new. 

"I think morale has been a challenge at the Post for a while. It was a problem when I showed up, and it remains one in some ways now," Murray told Fox News Digital.

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Murray, tasked with delivering the news to Post staffers, said much of the journalism industry is grappling with morale issues because of "cost pressures" and the constant changes to the way people consume media. 

Murray said Post leaders have tried to be forthright about the challenges that resulted in layoffs, and he's hoping to "turn the page."

"That's going to be partly on me," Murray said. "But people, I hope, would feel 'they're really tackling some stuff that's been building up for a while, and we're in a different position.' It'll be up to us to bear that out in the coming months, but I'm pretty confident we can do that."

One of the ways Murray hopes to boost morale among remaining employees is to promote their work. He said the Post will continue to "produce an awful lot and break a lot of scoops and stories," and internal changes will help journalists "get more mileage and leverage out of those stories." 

"That also happens to be the most fun thing you can do in a newsroom, so I want to continue to try to help encourage people to develop, to find and get great stories. And we're going to continue to stand behind those stories and put them out there," Murray said. 

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"The Post has been dealing with different kinds of problems for some number of years now," he added. "We want to be in a different period, [after] this painful exercise, and that's a period of collaboration, growth, innovation and reinventing the place for the future." 

Indeed, the Post has been battling internal morale issues for several years, while grappling with large financial losses. There have been multiple leaders, and therefore directions, since billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' $250 million purchase of the Post from the Graham family dynasty in 2013. 

Publisher and CEO Will Lewis angered many in 2024 when he bluntly told staffers, "We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can't sugarcoat it anymore." 

Previous rounds of layoffs and cost-cutting measures have also aggravated the rank-and-file, and Bezos famously upset liberals in 2024 by scrapping the Post's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. The last-minute move sparked massive subscription cancellations and sparked ire inside and outside the newsroom.

Bezos announced last year the Post's editorial pages would promote "personal liberties and free markets" going forward and vowed not to publish pieces opposing those principles, further antagonizing his critics. 

Things were so bad that, in July, Lewis urged staffers who didn't "feel aligned" with the paper's direction to take a buyout and leave. In addition to rounds of layoffs and buyout offers, the Post has faced an exodus of top talent in recent years, many of whom fled to outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and The Atlantic.

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While times have been tough at the Post, Wednesday's layoffs have sparked even more backlash. 

Ukraine correspondent Lizzie Johnson announced she was "just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone" in a post that has nearly 13 million views on X as of Thursday afternoon.

Thousands of comments, including many from fellow journalists across the industry, pointed to her situation to blast the Post and its billionaire owner. 

When asked about Johnson being let go specifically, Murray said he has "a lot of appreciation" and understands her frustration.

"Lizzie's a terrific reporter who's done great work in a very difficult situation for us, and I'm incredibly grateful to her and in awe of her courage and her talent. I don't blame her for being upset. That's a natural reaction, and it's understandable," Murray said. 

"We have different employees in different sensitive situations. And we've been as proactive as we can be in anticipating and dealing with all of those, and we are going to help everybody in the best circumstances that they can," he added. "They've been out there risking their lives for us."

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Murray said these types of cuts are "obviously tough on a human level," but he's confident the Post needed to drastically slash its headcount to land on "sounder footing."

"We are still a large, robust newsroom with hundreds and hundreds of journalists here, some of whom are the best in the world," he added. "And, so, I think we're well-positioned once we get past this difficult moment and have a strong foundation for the future."

Fox News Digital's Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.