Daily News Item 2026-02-04 12:18

“After weeks of rumors about impending layoffs, employees at the Washington Post were informed Wednesday morning that the Jeff Bezos–owned newspaper would be eliminating its books section, Book World, along with an array of other sections,” reports Publishers Weekly. Book World had relaunched in 2022 under the leadership of John Williams, previously of the New York Times Book Review, and was staffed by acclaimed critics including Ron Charles, Michael Dirda, and Becca Rothschild. Book World editor John Brogan noted that traffic to the section had been “quite good on the whole,” even as other major news outlets have made the decision to end their books coverage. In total, around one-third of the Washington Post’s staff will be eliminated by job cuts, including three hundred journalists out of the eight hundred who comprise the newsroom, reported the New York Times. “I know that every one of us believes deeply in this place and we all want to save it,” said Matt Murray, executive editor of the Post. (Critic Ron Charles was interviewed about his work at the Post by Michael Taeckens in the May/June 2015 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.)