The prestigious American daily Washington post announced Monday, December 21 an unprecedented increase in the size of its editorial staff with the creation of poles in Europe and Asia, eventually bringing its staff to more than 1,000 journalists.
With this international expansion, the newspaper, owned since 2013 by the multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, stands out in an American media landscape strongly affected by the economic crisis, most of the media tending to save money and to turn away from paper to favor the web.
The “WaPo”, which claimed to be profitable in 2018 without however disseminating financial data, plans to create editorial hubs in London and Seoul in order to have more effective news coverage 24 hours a day.
“The Post intends to ensure that its readers around the world have access to rapid and comprehensive information at any time of the day, including rich and varied news coverage from dawn in North America.”, explains the daily in a press release.
Compete with the “New York Times”
The newspaper hopes to increase its number of digital subscribers and compete with the New York Times, which has a team of at least 1,700 journalists and pays particular attention to its international readership.
The Washington post will also establish new offices in Sydney, Australia and Bogota, Colombia, bringing the total number of its branches abroad to 26. Through this operation, the daily newspaper’s editorial staff will expand to 44 positions, with a total workforce of 1,010 journalists, a record since its creation in 1877.
“Readers will benefit from enriched, deeper, faster, diverse and innovative journalism. This indicates immense confidence in the future of the Post “, welcomed Marty Baron, editor of the newspaper.
Conversely, many local and regional publications are in great difficulty across the United States. In the first half of 2020, US newsrooms cut more than 11,000 jobs, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This year is thus the worst for the American media since the economic crisis of 2008, when 14,265 layoffs were announced.
