Beleaguered WaPo Staffers Reportedly Consider Recruiting Tom Hanks to Save Their Jobs

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Staffers at The Washington Post “have been brainstorming for days” on how to convince owner Jeff Bezos to reverse course on looming layoffs, including considering recruiting some Hollywood star power to lobby for their cause, reported Status’ Oliver Darcy on Monday evening.

The Post has generated a slew of headlines since last year for the turmoil within its ranks as staffers have bristled at efforts by Bezos and Post publisher and CEO Will Lewis to cut costs, increase revenue, and adopt a more right-leaning, MAGA-friendly tone.

In recent days, multiple outlets have reported that “hundreds” of Post employees will be fired soon, hitting the sports and foreign desk especially hard, driving Posties to launch a “#SaveThePost” social media campaign to appeal to Bezos about the value of their work.

According to Darcy’s report, the internal chatter at the Post included strategizing beyond just tweets — and an overwhelming dose of depression.

“I’ve never experienced such a feeling of dread,” one staffer told Darcy, who described the mood as “morale sinking to a nadir” after interviewing “more than a half-dozen staffers and insiders” at the Post and reviewing internal Slack messages current employees shared with him. Another former manager bashed Bezos and Lewis’ stewardship of the paper as ” a business failure on a colossal level.”

Nonetheless, Darcy wrote, Post staffers “are doing everything they can to get Bezos’ attention and persuade him to deploy his vast resources to avert the coming newsroom amputation,” and “have been brainstorming for days about how to break through to the distracted owner,” including lobbying Bezos’ wife Lauren Sánchez and Hollywood A-listers:

Ideas have ranged from direct appeals to reaching out to high-profile allies of The Post, including Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, who portrayed Post legends Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham in the 2017 film “The Post.” Hanks, notably, also previously recorded a Super Bowl advertisement for the newspaper.

It’s not clear whether there was any official outreach to Hanks or Streep, but on Monday evening the Guild urged staffers to not only publicly tag Bezos in pleas for intervention, but also to tag Sanchez—seemingly the first time staffers have sought to appeal to the former journalist in a formal campaign. “If you’re comfortable, please tag Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez, sources with large followings—anyone who might be able to amplify our message and make sure it reaches those who need to hear it,” read the email, obtained by Status.

Darcy’s report also highlighted the sense of betrayal and anger felt by Post staffers over Bezos’ “retreat” from seeming like he “understood journalism’s value and was prepared to back it, both with his fortune and towering standing in society as one of the world’s preeminent businessmen,” to becoming someone who curries favor with Trump and jets around the world with Sánchez,

“To feel abandoned by someone who used to champion you is just wild,” said one Post staffer.

Another wrote in a Slack message, “I was just thinking the other day that I wished MacKenzie [Scott, Bezos’ ex-wife] had gotten us in the divorce.”

Read the report at Status.

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