Hello, media consumers, and welcome to another crummy day in American media.

This is the press box. It's Brian Curtis. It's David Shoemaker. It's producers

Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. David, this is not the day for piano music. Because at

8.30 Eastern time this morning, the Washington Post announced a massive layoff. Let these numbers wash over you.

The Post is laying off more than 300 journalists, according to New York Times.

There were somewhere around 800 journalists in the newsroom before.

The Post is laying off 30% of its employees inside and outside the newsroom.

Among the many casualties today, the Washington Post Sports Section is dead.

At least in, quote, its current form, as Executive Editor Matt Murray said on a Zoom call this morning, more on what that might mean shortly.

Foreign has been drastically cut at the Post.

Metro coverage has been cut.

The book section, which was run by John Williams, is gone.

Washington Post had a great book section.

I thought we should start with some feelings before we get to the nitty-gritty analysis here.

Can you imagine losing your media job in 2026?

No, I mean, it would just be absolutely...

I mean, you just feel lost, right?

I mean, what do you do?

It seems like it was, it has...

It's not even that...

We're not even that far removed from times where there would be massive layoffs and there'd be some number of editors, maybe for online outlets or whoever, the Atlantic, who would just kind of pop up and just be like, if you're looking for work, you know, like drop me an email. I'll send you to the, I'll put you in the queue. You know, there are people that were out there at least like voicing support in terms of there are job opportunities out there but we don't see

that at all anymore and especially at this volume for you know what in a lot of cases are pretty

...