The prestigious American daily Washington post announced on Monday an unprecedented increase in the size of its editorial staff with the creation of poles in Europe and Asia, ultimately bringing its workforce to more than 1,000 journalists.
With this international expansion, the newspaper, owned since 2013 by multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, stands out in an American media landscape heavily affected by the economic crisis, most 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 its readers everywhere in the world access to rapid and complete information at any time, with in particular a rich and varied news coverage from dawn in North America ”, explains the daily in a communicated.
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 staff 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 [Washington] 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 the firm 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.