Ishaan Tharoor, a senior international affairs columnist and son of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, was among those laid off by The Washington Post on Wednesday (Feb 4), in one of the most sweeping newsroom purges in media history. The Jeff Bezos-owned publication cut approximately one-third of its staff as part of a major restructuring that also included shuttering its sports desk and several international bureaus.

Confirming the news on social media, Tharoor, who has been associated with the newspaper for nearly 12 years, said he was "heartbroken" for the newsroom and his "wonderful colleagues".

"I have been laid off today from the @washingtonpost , along with most of the International staff and so many other wonderful colleagues. I'm heartbroken for our newsroom and especially for the peerless journalists who served the Post internationally -- editors and correspondents who have been my friends and collaborators for almost 12 years. It's been an honor to work with them," Tharoor wrote in an X (formerly Twitter) post.

Tharoor recalled launching the WorldView column in 2017 with an aim to help readers "better understand the world and America's place in it".

"I'm grateful for the half a million loyal subscribers who tuned into the column several times a week over the years." he added.

In another X post, Tharoor shared what looked like a picture of the newsroom, with a poster featuring the publication's official slogan, "Democracy Dies in Darkness". He accompanied the image with the sombre caption, "A bad day", which was later reposted by his father as well.

The cuts have disproportionately hit the Post's foreign bureaus, local reporting teams, sports desk, and significant parts of the business division. Entire international reporting structures appear to have been dismantled in a move many current and former staff describe as a "dark day," not just for the newspaper, but for global journalism.

The scale of the layoffs signals a dramatic contraction of the Post's global footprint. Foreign correspondents, often the backbone of its award-winning international coverage, appear to have been among the hardest hit.

Source: NDTV