The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, made major layoffs that eliminate more than 300 jobs across the paper, about 30% of its headcount, resulting in the shuttering of its sports and books section and cutbacks in other areas, the New York Times reported.

Staffers were informed by email Wednesday morning that they should stay home and attend a videoconference at 8:30 a.m., per CNN. On the call, Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray said the sports and books section will close along with the “Post Reports” daily news podcast. Local and international reporting teams also will be reduced. The cuts will refocus the paper, which has been losing money, on national and political news, along with business and health, he said.

Asked for comment, a Washington Post spokesperson said in an email: “The Washington Post is taking a number of difficult but decisive actions today for our future, in what amounts to a significant restructuring across the company. These steps are designed to strengthen our footing and sharpen our focus on delivering the distinctive journalism that sets The Post apart and, most importantly, engages our customers.”

Neither Bezos nor Washington Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis were part of the communications to the newspaper’s employees about the job cuts.

Those who were laid off include Caroline O’Donovan, the Post’s beat reporter covering Amazon. “haven’t posted here in years but uh… some news. i’m out, along with just a ton of the best in the biz. horrible,” she wrote on X.

In a post on X, former race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton wrote, “I’m among the hundreds of people laid off by The Post. This comes six months after hearing in a national meeting that race coverage drives subscriptions. This wasn’t a financial decision, it was an ideological one.”

Other Post employees who said they were laid off include national culture and entertainment writer Jada Yuan, book editor Jacob Brogan, tech columnist Geoff Fowler, and Cairo bureau chief Claire Parker, who said “the entire roster of Middle East correspondents and our editors” also have been let go.

In a memo to staffers, a copy of which was obtained by Variety, Muarry wrote that “The need has never been more urgent to reposition The Post. A more flexible, sustainable model will help us better navigate unprecedented volatility, competition, technological change, news-consumption habits, and cost pressure. As you know, we have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with periodic constraints on other kinds of spending.” He said that platforms like Google Search that “shaped the previous era of digital news, and which once helped The Post thrive, are in serious decline,” saying that the Post’s organic search has fallen by nearly half in the last three years.

“We have concluded that the company’s structure is too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product,” according to Murray’s memo. “This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward.” (Read the full memo below.)

National Press Club president Mark Schoeff Jr. said in a statement, “Today’s layoffs at the Washington Post are a devastating setback for the scores of individual journalists affected and for the journalism profession. It is among the most high-profile newsroom dismissals of the year, but similar actions at several other publications are just as painful for the journalists who are now out of work.” He added, “When newsrooms shrink, accountability shrinks with them, and the public is left with fewer facts and fewer answers.”

In a statement, former Post executive editor Martin Baron said, “The Washington Post’s ambitions will be sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff will be further depleted, and the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever.”

Bezos, currently executive chairman of Amazon, bought the Washington Post in 2013 and owns it in his personal capacity. He has recently made several controversial changes to the legendary paper, including overhauling the Post’s opinion section last year to focus on “personal liberties and free markets” rather than “broad-based” issues.

Read Murray’s full memo to Washington Post staff about the layoffs:

Dear All,

As we shared in our live stream earlier, the company is taking actions today to place The Washington Post on a stronger footing and better position us in this rapidly changing era of new technologies and evolving user habits.

These moves include substantial newsroom reductions impacting nearly all news departments. For the immediate future, we will concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact and that resonate with readers: politics, national affairs, people, power and trends; national security in DC and abroad; forces shaping the future including science, health, medicine, technology, climate, and business; journalism that empowers people to take action, from advice to wellness; revelatory investigations; and what’s capturing attention in culture, online, and in daily life.

We will meet with leaders in each department today and tomorrow to review the impacts on their teams.

Today’s news is painful. These are difficult actions. We are proud of, and grateful for, the many valued colleagues whose talents and passion have contributed to The Post over many years.

But we take them with clarity of purpose. The need has never been more urgent to reposition The Post. A more flexible, sustainable model will help us better navigate unprecedented volatility, competition, technological change, news-consumption habits, and cost pressure.

As you know, we have grappled with financial challenges for some time. They have affected us in multiple rounds of cost cuts and buyouts, along with periodic constraints on other kinds of spending.

We have concluded that the company’s structure is too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product. This restructure will help to secure our future in service of our journalistic mission and provide us stability moving forward.

We are far from alone in reevaluating our model or rethinking how we operate. The ecosystem of news and information, on- and off-platform, is changing radically. News consumers enjoy more variety, voices, platforms, and options than ever before. In just the last five years, multiple startups—and even individuals—have created meaningful products that draw attention and generate impact at low cost.

Platforms like Search that shaped the previous era of digital news, and which once helped The Post thrive, are in serious decline. Our organic search has fallen by nearly half in the last three years. And we are still in the early days of AI-generated content, which is drastically reshaping user experiences and expectations.

We are producing much great journalism of which we can be proud. As we discuss every day in the news meeting, some of our best work attracts readers and generates subscriptions and engagement.

Unfortunately, some does not. Some areas, such as video, haven’t kept up with changes in how consumers get news and information. Significantly, our daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years. And even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience.

If we are to thrive, not just endure, we must reinvent our journalism and our business model with renewed ambition. We already have taken important and, in some cases, long overdue steps toward reinvention—creating the Print desk, transforming digital workflows, and embedding Audience Strategy editors in every department. Today’s moves will put us in position to find and develop better ways to connect Post journalism to news consumers in the ways they want it.

From this foundation, we aim to build on what is working, and grow with discipline and intent, to experiment, to measure and deepen what resonates with customers.

We can’t be everything to everyone. But we must be indispensable where we compete. That means continually asking why a story matters, who it serves and how it gives people a clearer understanding of the world and an advantage in navigating it.

Some of you have heard me ask how we can shrink the gap between some of what we create in our newsroom during the day and what we — and our children, families, and friends — consume at night.

Today’s actions are about addressing those questions, forcefully, to reinvent The Washington Post for this new era. This work is difficult, but it is essential. The Post is a necessary institution, and it must remain relevant.

Even amid challenges, The Washington Post retains great strengths. We have a deep pool of talented journalists and leaders, strong standards, institutional backing, a proud legacy, and millions of customers.

Most important, our central purpose remains as it ever was: To produce riveting and distinct journalism of the highest caliber that breaks news, explains the world with authority and fairness, empowers people with knowledge, and helps them live better-informed lives.

Matt