The paper on Wednesday internally announced it would shut down its sports department “in its current form,” WaPo sports columnist Barry Svrluga wrote on . The Athletic reports the roughly 45-person sports team was told to remain at home Wednesday and was informed via Zoom that the department would cease operation; a small number of journalists will be reassigned.
The move folds a section that the Athletic extols as one of the country’s premier sports desks—home over the decades to figures like Shirley Povich, Thomas Boswell, Christine Brennan, Sally Jenkins, David Aldridge, and the duo of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon—and comes as part a broader round of cuts affecting hundreds across the organization.
In its heyday, the Post was probably the nation’s best sports section. All of the luminaries you mentioned plus Tom Boswell, John Feinstein, Liz Clarke, Dave Kindred, and bunch of really talented beat writers, many of whom jumped from sports (always affectionately known at the Post as “the toy department”) to hard news. In recent years, Isabelle Khachaturyan went from covering the Caps, where her fluency in Russian helped make Alex Ovechkin interviews a lot more interesting, to reporting from Ukraine.
There’s really no good reason to subscribe to the paper any more, even as a local, and it’s a shame.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports it added more than a million on-line subscribers last year. The Times has no true in-house sports department, though, using the services of The Athletic for those stories.
Of note, Miami grad Phil Coffin is a former sports editor for the Times.
Many other sections of the paper are being gutted too. Say what you will about the gilded age robber barons, but they would at least do things like open universities, build hospitals, and fund libraries and the arts for the sake of the public. Our current crop of ultrawealthy will buy one of the largest newspapers in the country and shut down every section that isn’t turning a profit.
I have a bunch of media friends at the Post when they worked in New York; some at the NY Post (where I worked) and others at the Daily News. It’s another sad day for a business all of us who chose that world. There is nothing to take its place.
At least the NY Times owns the Athletic. Is WaPo going the AP route or using stringers. Tom Boswell was a giant.
Bezos has in a few short years ruined the Post. It was once maybe the greatest news source in the US if not the world. And yes, I have read many foreign papers.
I subscribed to the Post for years. Mrs Graham, Ben Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein had the guts to stand up to an earlier wanna be dictator in Nixon and drove him out of office. I supported them for their bravery and dedication to the truth. But Bezos, in failing to endorse a candidate, and no, I don’t care which one, failed the paper and it’s readers. Over 300,000 subscribers, including me, canceled their subscriptions in the days after this act. What Bezos and the uber rich do not understand is that they do not “own” an institution such as the Post. They simply are stewards of the paper for their lifetime. To upend it’s mission is a disgrace. And this from a man who spent $500M on a mega sailboat and $250M on a supply ship that follows his sailboat. And he gave his new wife hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and jewelry as wedding gifts.
I no longer even click on an article. No support for the Bezos Post. When he’s gone, and assuming I am still around, I may resubscribe. May being the operative word.
Of course I did. But that was not the point. I wasn’t going to name my preferred candidate as it didn’t matter. The point was made not for the past election, but for all future elections. Some candidates I would support, some not. But to not endorse anyone is the problem. It’s gutless and a breach of the duty that the Post has made to generations past, present and future
You just don’t get it. An endorsement may, or may not, influence my subscribing to a paper. The “bad pool of fish” must mean Trump and Harris. But neither one will run again. But there is a precedent set. A stare decisis as the law calls it. My point is not for me. I’m 75, ill and injured. But I have intelligent grandchildren who will soon be voting-–with or without me.
Do I decide who to vote for strictly on the endorsement of a newspaper? No. But I look to some for guidance. For information from credible sources I have come to respect. I feel it’s important to remain informed, therefore, I read. A lot. US and foreign papers. Do I depend on the National Enquirer? Or the NY Post? Guess. And news/opinion shows on tv. And how do you stay informed and decide who you should vote for?
I was one of 300,000 who unsubscribed within a day or two of Bezos’ decision. Are we all ignorant fools being led by a pied piper?