Buyouts at Washington Post Continue As Paper Hopes To Regain Financial Standing

Buyouts at The Washington Post continue as the paper seeks to get rid of its most high-profile staffers in efforts to improve its financial standings, according to a new report.

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray announced its Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) in May, hoping that more veteran staffers would be enticed by the exit offer. Posties, as Washington Post employees are known, have until July 31 to accept the offer.

"It kind of shows the crazy incentives at play," one Post staffer told Fox News Digital. "There is a lot of great talent left, and we've been beating everyone on the federal government story, but it's going to be another talent train."

Another round of buyouts took place last October, when the Post announced it would cut 240 jobs. That announcement, which also included a buyout program, came amid reports that the paper was on track to lose $100 million last year.

The Post met its reduction threshold at the end of last year, cutting about 10% of its staff and gutting many departments. The paper's new publisher, Will Lewis, later said in an interview last year that the publication vowed to "expand" and get its "swagger back."

In the current round of buyouts, nine months of base pay would be given to staffers employed for 10-15 months, 12 months of base pay for 15-20-year veterans, 15 months of base pay for 20-25-year veterans and 18 months for anyone who has worked in the paper for more than 25 years, Fox News detailed. All of them would also receive 12 months of pay credit in their Separate Retirement Account (SRA).

"It's been a bloodbath in editorial," a Post staffer told Fox News.

Some of the paper's biggest names have taken the buyouts, including Glenn Kessler, the Post's longtime lead fact-checker.

"Much as I would have liked to keep scrutinizing politicians in Washington, especially in this era, the financial considerations were impossible to dismiss," Kessler wrote on social media reviewing his more than 20 years at the Post, including 15 as its lead fact-checker.

The Post has not indicated any plans to replace him, Kessler wrote.

"I had my detractors, from both the left and right, but many readers appreciated my efforts to sort out the truth in political rhetoric," he wrote.

Others, such as Jonathan Capehart and Catherine Rampell (both MSNBC weekend hosts), Perry Bacon Jr. and Philip Bump took the buyouts as well.

The exodus of talent may also be attributed to the paper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos and his initiative to promote "personal liberties and free markets" while vowing not to publish pieces opposing those principles in the op-ed section. Most notably, the newspaper experienced a massive drop in subscribers last fall over its decision not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, which some considered as a separation from its flagship slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness."