Legendary Newspaper Guts Its Sports Department

Rumors of the Post shuttering its sports department first surfaced about a week ago, with many media members criticizing the newspaper for the possibility of dropping sports.  The paper on January 24 announced they were not sending anyone to cover the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, but reversed course two days later, saying a four-person team would be going.

Murray told staff that some sports reporters would remain with the paper, covering sports as a “cultural and societal phenomenon,” according to Max Tani of Semafor.

The Sports Page Of That Newspaper Was Legendary

It’s hard to argue there was a more important sports department in a newspaper than the one at The Washington Post.  The bylines in storylines reads like a Hall of Fame to great sports reporting: Shirley Povich, Thomas Boswell, David Remnick, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, John Feinstein, Sally Jenkins, Christine Brennan, Richard Justice, and Rachel Nichols, among a myriad of others.  They had great writers still: Chuck Culpepper, Chelsea Janes, Candace Buckner, Sam Fortier, Will Hobson, Neil Greenberg, and Mark Maske among them.  The Post made sure their presence was felt at events throughout the country and around the world.  The Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Final, the World Cup Final, the Olympics — if there was a big event, you’d find someone from the newspaper there.

No longer.

Post Staffers Announcing Their Layoff

Many of the sports staff at the Post took to social media Wednesday to announce they were caught in the culling.