Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s son, Ishaan Tharoor, was among one-third of the employees laid off by The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, on Wednesday. Beyond job cuts, the long-established newspaper has reportedly shut down its sports desk, closed several overseas bureaus, and discontinued its books coverage.
Tharoor worked as a senior international affairs columnist at the news outlet and confirmed his layoff in a social media post. More than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists were fired from the newsroom, The New York Times reported.
Ishaan Tharoor on Washington Post layoffs
Shashi Tharoor’s son was among those laid off during the mass job cuts, which also saw several sections shut down, dealing a blow to the newspaper’s decades-long legacy.
In a post on X, he shared what is believed to be a picture of the newsroom, where a poster reading “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was displayed, and captioned the post “A bad day” after the mass layoffs. This post was reshared by his father on X.
In another post, he confirmed the layoff and said he was “heartbroken” over the publication’s move.
“I have been laid off today from The Washington Post, along with most of the International staff and so many other wonderful colleagues. I’m heartbroken for our newsroom and especially for the peerless journalists who served the Post internationally — editors and correspondents who have been my friends and collaborators for almost 12 years. It’s been an honour to work with them,” he wrote.
Ishaan added, “I launched the WorldView column in January 2017 to help readers better understand the world and America’s place in it and I’m grateful for the half a million loyal subscribers who tuned into the column several times a week over the years.”
Washington Post mass layoffs
The Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, described the decision as painful but necessary to put the outlet on a better path and to adapt to shifts in technology and reader behaviour. “We can’t be everything to everyone,” Murray said in a note to staff members, Associated Press reported.
Reports of the job losses surfaced throughout the day. Cairo bureau chief Claire Parker said on X that she had been laid off, along with all of the newspaper’s Middle East correspondents and editors. “Hard to understand the logic,” she wrote.
Murray told employees that the cuts would affect the international, editing, metro, and sports desks. The move comes only days after the newspaper, founded in 1877, reduced its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics amid continued financial losses, Reuters reported.
The newspaper was acquired by Bezos in 2013, when he purchased it from the Graham family for $250 million.
