Washington Post to add more than 150 jobs next year, bringing newsroom to record size

The Washington Post plans to add more than 150 jobs to its newsroom next year, bringing its total staff to a record high of more than 1,000, the newspaper confirmed to The Hill on Thursday. 

The New York Times’s Ben Smith first reported the additions on Twitter on Thursday.

WaPo, per an email from Fred Ryan, now over 3 million subs, and will create 150 jobs next year, bringing newsroom over 1,000 — biggest ever.

— Ben Smith (@benyt) December 17, 2020

Reached for comment, Post spokesperson Molly Gannon Conway confirmed the number but did not provide any additional details on the staff increase at the outlet owned by Amazon CEO and tech billionaire Jeff Bezos. 

Axios media reporter Sara Fischer said on Twitter that Post publisher Fred Ryan informed staff of the change in a memo, writing that the 150 new positions will be “the most in a single year” that the storied publication has seen.

NEW: In a memo to staff, @washingtonpost Publisher Fred Ryan says in 2021, “we will be adding more than 150 new positions – the most in a single year.”
— “The newsroom, with more than 1,000 journalists, will be the largest in the history of The Washington Post.”

— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) December 17, 2020

The expansion of the Post, whose digital subscriptions have tripled since 2016 to nearly 3 million, comes as other news outlets have struggled to keep up financially amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

In March, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti informed staff that the organization would institute a graduated salary reduction for most staffers in April and May to prepare for financial losses due to lockdown measures and other coronavirus restrictions. 

In May, BuzzFeed announced in a memo to staffers obtained by The Hill that 68 employees in the U.S. and some international markets would be furloughed as the company hoped to keep losses “under $20 [million].”

Vox Media announced furloughs for about 100 employees in April, while Gannett and the Los Angeles Times also made similar moves.

In May, Vice News laid off 55 employees in the U.S. and 100 internationally. 

“I want you to know that we’ve done absolutely everything that we could to protect these positions for as long as possible, and your time and contributions will forever be part of who we are and who we will become,” Vice CEO Nancy Duboc said in an email to staff at the time. 

Local newspapers have been hit especially hard. Earlier this month, the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest newspaper, and the oldest continuously published paper in the country, announced it would be closing its physical newsroom by the end of the year.