The Washington Post has been quietly rehiring some laid-off staffers after axing a third of its newsroom in a brutal round of cuts earlier this year, according to a report.
After getting rid of over 300 journos across nearly all news departments in February, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper quietly contacted at least 10 of those staffers to gauge their interest in returning to the company in new roles, the Status newsletter reported Wednesday.
Several staffers have accepted those return offers, including tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku, climate reporter Jake Spring and senior national political correspondent Naftali Bendavid, according to Status.
The LinkedIn profiles and WaPo bios for all three journalists did not indicate a change in their roles as of Thursday afternoon.
After eliminating the entire sports desk, WaPo also brought back Bailey Johnson to cover the Washington Capitals and hired Danielle Allentuck to cover the Washington Nationals, according to Status.
A WaPo spokesperson told Status that reporters are “not being hired back [for] the same roles they had before.”
“We are listening to customer feedback and addressing it in real time,” the spokesperson said, adding that executive editor Matt Murray has said the paper will continue to cover sports.
The Washington Post did not immediately respond to The Post’s questions, including how many laid-off staffers have accepted return offers and how many are in new roles.
Bezos – who reportedly ignored pleas from reporters to stop the harsh layoffs – met with a small group of high-profile WaPo editors and reporters at his Washington, DC, mansion last month in a rare get-together before return offers were sent to laid-off staffers, Status previously reported.
Return offers were made to employees across much of the newsroom, including the national, sports, metro, technology and climate desks, according to the report.
In his first public statement after the layoffs, Bezos said the job cuts were an attempt to focus on areas of reader interest and make data-driven decisions.
“Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus,” the billionaire Amazon founder wrote.
In a letter to staffers obtained by The Post, Murray called the layoffs a “painful” decision, adding that the “substantial newsroom reductions” hit “nearly all news departments.”
Like many other legacy newspapers, WaPo has struggled to stay afloat amid steep declines in web traffic and changes in how consumers get their news.
The company’s losses soared past $100 million in 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal, after bleeding $77 million in 2023 and about $100 million in 2024 with a well-staffed newsroom.
Meanwhile, loyal readers have canceled their subscriptions en masse, weighing on the paper’s bottom line, after Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris for president in 2024 and added more conservative voices to its opinion section.
