The Washington Post cuts: What it means for strategic communications

Last week, the Washington Post announced it would lay off one-third of its staff, eliminating its sports department, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage. This is the Washington Post, the paper that broke Watergate, that has shaped American politics and world affairs for generations. Whatever your view of the decisions that led here, cuts this deep at an institution this significant are genuinely sobering for anyone who values journalism's role in public life. 

But the forces behind these cuts are bigger than any one owner, any set of editorial choices or any single management strategy. They reflect a structural transformation of media that has been building for more than two decades and that demands a fundamental rethinking of how strategic communicators do their work. 

The scale of the shift 

Print circulation at the Post peaked in 1993 at 832,000 daily subscribers. By 2023, that number had fallen to roughly 139,000. The digital story looked more promising for a while, but digital subscribers topped 3 million in the early 2020s and have since dropped below 2.5 million. Most strikingly, daily active users plummeted from 22.5 million in January 2021 to between 2.5 and 3 million by mid-2024. That's an 87% decline in three years. 

The Post isn't alone. Newspapers across the country have closed entirely or moved online-only. Markets that once supported multiple competing dailies now have none. The New York Times, often held up as the industry's success story, has also seen massive circulation declines over the same period. 

The cause isn't a mystery. Over twenty years, audiences have migrated. First to cable news, then to digital platforms, then to social media and now increasingly to podcasts, newsletters and specialty outlets like Axios, Semafor and Politico. Google and Facebook captured the advertising revenue that once sustained the industry. And now AI tools are reducing search traffic to news sites, cutting off yet another discovery channel. Each wave has accelerated the fragmentation of the media landscape into thousands of pieces and there's no reason to think this process is slowing down. 

What this means for strategic communicators 

For those of us tasked with managing corporate reputation and getting our clients' stories heard, these shifts demand more than incremental adjustment. The old playbook – land coverage in the Post or the Times and declare victory - no longer delivers what it once did. Those outlets still matter, certainly, but they are no longer the primary gatekeepers they once were. 

The new landscape rewards precision over volume. In a fragmented environment, generic media strategies simply don't cut through. You need to know exactly which audiences you're trying to move, where they consume information, what formats they prefer and which voices they trust. That requires genuine audience intelligence - not assumptions based on yesterday's media map. 

It also demands diversification. Your stakeholders might be reading industry-specific newsletters, listening to niche podcasts, following thought leaders on LinkedIn, or getting their news from sources that didn't exist five years ago. Reaching them means meeting them where they are, not where you wish they were. 

And it places a premium on owned channels. Building direct communication platforms, whether through thought leadership, owned media or strategic use of social channels, gives organisations ways to reach stakeholders that don't depend entirely on third-party gatekeepers whose reach and influence are in flux. 

Perhaps most importantly, content quality and relevance matter more than ever. With so much information competing for attention, you can no longer rely on institutional credibility alone - be it yours or that of an outlet. The message has to earn attention on its own terms. 

Looking ahead 

The Washington Post's cuts reflect a reality that every strategic communicator needs to confront honestly. The media landscape has fundamentally changed, and AI and other emerging technologies will only accelerate the fragmentation from here. Those who recognise these shifts and adapt their approach with sharper targeting, diversified channels and stronger owned platforms, will be better positioned to reach the audiences that matter. Those who cling to the old model risk finding that the world has moved on without them.