Emmanuel Felton, a journalist who covered race and ethnicity for The Washington Post, was among the hundreds of staffers laid off this week, following weeks of turmoil. Felton, who joined the Post in June 2021, claimed in a post on X, that his firing wasn’t a financial move, as stated by the media company; it was purely ideological.
Felton pointed out that he learned about his layoff just six months after management stated in a national meeting that their coverage of race actually drives subscriptions. He added that the only other reporter on his team covering race was also laid off, as was the editor in charge of race coverage across the national desk. If the paper is saying the coverage makes money, then cutting the entire team certainly looks like a philosophical shift, not a budget cut.
