Washington Post Sports is dead (HTTR)

[PowerBoater69]

Rumors are flying that the Post is going to cut their Sports section. Well, Hail to the Redskins to that.

https://www.federalbaseball.com/general/88544/why-dc-sports-fans-need-washington-post-covering-nationals

[HalfSmokes]

Trying their best to convince locals not to subscribe.

[imref]

To be fair, it's only a rumor at this point. But it would indeed suck to lose the Post sports desk.

[varoadking]

To be fair, it's only a rumor at this point. But it would indeed suck to lose the Post sports desk.

Agreed...they should just lose the entire rag...

[JCA-CrystalCity]

They are more or less trying to become Axios or Politico but have even lost what made that sort of coverage good. They are losing reporters all over the rag. More reason to just subscribe to the NYT if they throw The Athletic in as well.

Without knowing their subscription patterns, they probably think they get outside the area subscriptions for an increasing % and figure there are enough federal workers and contractors who will stay on for that beat.

As the Fed Baseball blogpost says, the combo of  Golden and Nusbaum on the beat, Janes as the MLB generalist, and Svrluga as a columnist (with Boz a few times a year) is really informative. They do break news and have rich source depth. TBH, the Nats are 90% of my DC sports connection. Lose the sports, coupled with the other changes, and I will just follow WTOP for my local news and switch to the NYT.

[Smithian]

WaPo has been a very poor local newspaper. The fact they entirely missed Caps/Wizards planning an escape to NoVa highlights that. This makes me sad, but they have no one to blame but themselves.

[Smithian]

They are more or less trying to become Axios or Politico but have even lost what made that sort of coverage good. They are losing reporters all over the rag. More reason to just subscribe to the NYT if they throw The Athletic in as well.

Without knowing their subscription patterns, they probably think they get outside the area subscriptions for an increasing % and figure there are enough federal workers and contractors who will stay on for that beat.

As the Fed Baseball blogpost says, Golden and Nusbaum on the beat, Janes as the MLB generalist, and Svrluga as a columnist (with Boz a few times a year) is really informative. They do break news and have rich source depth. TBH, the Nats are 90% of my DC sports connection. Lose the sports, coupled with the other changes, and I will just follow WTOP for my local news and switch to the NYT.

Their Nats coverage imo is their best product. Really deep. Redskins been up and down. It's their local news coverage non-sports that is bad.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Their Nats coverage imo is their best product. Really deep. Redskins been up and down. It's their local news coverage non-sports that is bad.

so, blame Marky Mark and the In-Laws for more damage to DC.

[HalfSmokes]

WaPo has been a very poor local newspaper. The fact they entirely missed Caps/Wizards planning an escape to NoVa highlights that. This makes me sad, but they have no one to blame but themselves.

Ffxnow and alxnow are both somehow better for local reporting. If they’re trying to be national, good luck- NYT an WSJ are both better products. It’s sad that we don’t have a local paper with a real metro section and a real sports section anymore

[imref]

Ffxnow and alxnow are both somehow better for local reporting. If they’re trying to be national, good luck- NYT an WSJ are both better products. It’s sad that we don’t have a local paper with a real metro section and a real sports section anymore

It is indeed sad.

[welch]

I grew up reading the Post, and practiced my reading on Bob Addie and Shirley Povich. Alice and Jerry, the reading books in DC Public Schools, did not hold my interest. Back in the 1950s, there were Post families and Evening Star families. We were a Post family.

If the Post kills off the Sports section, plus the foreign coverage, there is no more reason to read it. The Post Editorial page is full of light-weight thinkers who write silly columns. The local news holds my interest, but not enough to justify a subscription.

[HalfSmokes]

I grew up reading the Post, and practiced my reading on Bob Addie and Shirley Povich. Alice and Jerry, the reading books in DC Public Schools, did not hold my interest. Back in the 1950s, there were Post families and Evening Star families. We were a Post family.

If the Post kills off the Sports section, plus the foreign coverage, there is no more reason to read it. The Post Editorial page is full of light-weight thinkers who write silly columns. The local news holds my interest, but not enough to justify a subscription.

I live in Fairfax county- by far the largest jurisdiction in the post’s coverage area and there are normally no stories, certainly no reporting of ongoing news stories. That’s why I cancelled.

[PowerBoater69]

Used to be you knew that you had had a late night when you could steal someone's paper on your way home.

[imref]

Via Erik Wemple at the NY Times:

More on the WaPo situation: The sports section was told not to book travel arrangements for its Nationals beat writers to cover spring training, according to two sources. There are two beat writers for the Nationals.

[PowerBoater69]

They screwed around with the name of the most popular team in town and found out what happens. Hypocrites, working for a paper named after a President who ordered the destruction of Indian villages. Hail to the Redskins!

[welch]

From the NY Times,

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/business/media/washington-post-winter-olympics.html

Note: Erik Wemple, ex-Post, is one of the two NY Times reporters who wrote this story.

  The Winter Olympics is a quadrennial media spectacle, drawing parka-clad sportswriters, photojournalists and TV anchors from around the world.

This year, a team from The Washington Post won’t be among them.

Kimi Yoshino, a managing editor of The Washington Post, sent a terse and unexpected email to more than a dozen of the newspaper’s journalists on Friday, notifying them that their coverage plans were abruptly being changed.

“As we assess our priorities for 2026, we have decided not to send a contingent to the Winter Olympics,” Ms. Yoshino wrote. “We realize this decision and its timing will be disappointing to many of you, so please reach out to me if you want to talk further.”

The Post’s decision not to send its journalists to cover a major sporting event with widespread global appeal breaks with years of precedent at the newspaper. Since the newspaper was purchased more than a decade ago by Amazon.com’s founder, Jeff Bezos, The Post has aggressively expanded its international presence, opening editing hubs in Seoul and London and hiring reporters to cover breaking news around the world.

But The Post has been retrenching in recent years as losses at the paper have piled up. In 2023, The Post offered buyouts to eliminate 240 jobs amid losses of $100 million and overly rosy projections for subscriptions and advertising revenue. Last year, The Post offered another round of buyouts that were accepted by many of the paper’s marquee journalists.

[Natsinpwc]

They screwed around with the name of the most popular team in town and found out what happens. Hypocrites, working for a paper named after a President who ordered the destruction of Indian villages. Hail to the Redskins!

Not sure what you’re talking about. Yea one writer led the charge for changing the name. But don’t forget he was long gone when it happened and the Post had sponsored a ballyhooed poll with the results being lost native Americans were ok with the name. It only happened later because Snyder did so many awful things and he wanted to deflect.

[PowerBoater69]

Not sure what you’re talking about. Yea one writer led the charge for changing the name. But don’t forget he was long gone when it happened and the Post had sponsored a ballyhooed poll with the results being lost native Americans were ok with the name. It only happened later because Snyder did so many awful things and he wanted to deflect.

Wise was the face of the push for the name change, but it was hardly him alone, far from it, the Editorial Board stopped using the name in 2014, long before there was any push among the owners to oust Snyder.

[varoadking]

Wasn't it ultimately pressure from big money sponsors that led to the Redskins becoming the WFT?

[HalfSmokes]

Wasn't it ultimately pressure from big money sponsors that led to the Redskins becoming the WFT?

It was Fred Smith freaking over Snyder.

[PowerBoater69]

Wasn't it ultimately pressure from big money sponsors that led to the Redskins becoming the WFT?

The final straws were all based on Snyder screwing over everyone he did business with. But it was the Post that started it all and led the charge.

[Slateman]

Bezos doesnt need a sports section to shill his propaganda

[Natsinpwc]

The final straws were all based on Snyder screwing over everyone he did business with. But it was the Post that started it all and led the charge.

I forget the reporter name but he was long gone when it came up again. Like ten years. And wasn’t led by the Post.  The Post killed it originally by sponsoring a poll.  One writer doesn’t equal leading any charge.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/15608840/native-americans-say-unbothered-redskins-team-name-washington-post-poll

[Natsinpwc]

And only the editorial board stopped using the name.  The Post still used Redksins in sports stories.

[Natsinpwc]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/so-far-the-redskins-have-been-really-good-at-holding-on-its-about-to-get-bumpy/2018/11/14/488e8564-e82b-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/football-insider/wp/2018/08/07/mason-foster-says-redskins-objective-for-2018-is-clear-its-win-now/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-redskins-are-making-it-harder-to-care-about-them-with-each-passing-loss/2019/11/17/a5a6607e-096c-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html

It’s pretty clear they didn’t stop using Redskins.