Washington Post technology reporter Caroline O’Donovan, who covered Amazon for nearly four years, was among hundreds of staffers laid off Wednesday at the Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper in cuts affecting roughly 30% of all employees.
O’Donovan confirmed the news with a post on X: “I’m out, along with just a ton of the best in the biz. horrible.” She joined the Post in 2022 after seven years as a technology reporter at BuzzFeed, where she co-authored a 2019 investigation into Amazon’s delivery network that revealed how productivity pressure contributed to dangerous accidents and how Amazon uses third-party contractors to sidestep legal liability. A follow-up co-published by BuzzFeed and ProPublica was featured on “Frontline” and won a 2019 SABEW award.
The cuts impact more than 300 of roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom. The paper is eliminating its sports and books sections, stopping its “Post Reports” daily news podcast, and shrinking metro and international coverage. Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler, also laid off, said most of the Post’s San Francisco bureau was cut.
Executive Editor Matt Murray said on a call with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long. In an email, he said the Post was “too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product” and that online search traffic had fallen by nearly half in the last three years, partly because of generative AI.
Bezos bought the Post for $250 million in 2013 and was initially a distant but supportive owner. His influence came into sharper focus in recent years. In February he refocused the opinion section on supporting “two pillars” — personal liberties and free markets. That came after his 2024 decision to end the newspaper’s tradition of endorsing presidential candidates, including reportedly spiking the Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, which cost the paper more than 200,000 digital subscribers.
After Trump resumed office, Bezos joined other tech leaders in expressing willingness to work with the administration and attended the presidential inauguration. The elimination of the Post’s Amazon beat reporter raises questions about conflicts of interest and editorial independence at a newspaper owned by one of the world’s wealthiest executives.
