Tim Pool on mass layoffs at The Washington Post: “Let's talk about the death of this industry. And, is it good? Is it bad? Well, you know, I think it's kind of a good thing.”
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From the February 4, 2026, edition of Timcast, posted to YouTube
TIM POOL (HOST): Let's read the news and then let's talk about the death of this industry. And, is it good? Is it bad? Well, you know, I think it's kind of a good thing.
CNN reports the Washington Post announcing mass layoffs Wednesday morning dealing another big blow to its storied media company in a newsroom that has reached a breaking point. Executive editor Matt Murray and human resources chief Wayne Connell sent an email to staffers Wednesday morning instructing employees to stay home today, but attend an 8:30 AM meeting via Zoom, during which the Washington Post leadership will announce significant actions across the company. Bye bye. Those actions include shutting down almost the entire sports section, closing the book section, and canceling the daily Post Reports podcast, sources at the newspaper said. One of the most severe cuts comes in the form of a restructuring of the post's metro desk, which covers DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The post international coverage will also be markedly reduced, though some bureaus outside the US will remain open. Widespread layoffs of the Post have been expected for several weeks, especially after leadership told staff in an internal memo that they no longer plan to send any reporters to the Winter Olympics this month. The Post's publisher, Will Lewis, has spoken privately about finding a path to profitability for the Post by focusing the paper's investment on politics and a few other key areas while cutting back in areas like sports and foreign affairs.
And I'm gonna tell you right now, y'all is cooked. You're cooked. Because you wanna know what we're doing here at Timcast? We've been enjoying -- you know, even right now, over the election period last year, we were rivaling Steven Crowder for the top spot — biggest live show in, in news and politics. These days, we're in the off season, we're a very heavy political show. And, you know, Crowder does comedy. Bongino's back, his show's massive. And so we're sitting around, like, seventh or eighth place. I think we're usually around fifth place. So, you know, certainly others have have gotten big.
For some reason, they've been promoting Candace Owens like crazy despite her wackaloon claims that everyone has finally started to figure out — or wackaloon. Like, Charlie wasn't a time traveler. He was a guy. Rest in peace.
But what we're looking at is we don't -- we can't just be heavy politics darkness all day. So the conversations we've been having is, you know, there are episodes we have -- the show is basically like a news culture hangout, but we have to have fun with it. And so we want to bring on more guests that are in the politics and comedy space so that we can lighten things up and focus on general cultural issues with a heavy focus on politics. My point is this. The Washington Post pivoting heavy to politics and getting rid of sports and other things that people actually care about on a day-to-day basis is a death sentence. And I can tell you this right now, the ebb and flows of the political cycle are not conducive to a newspaper. It's not gonna play well.