Washington Post staffers take swipes at bosses as they announce departure from battled paper

Two Washington Post staffers took parting shots at the paper as they announced their exits for a different outlet.

NOTUS (News of the United States), the digital news outlet established in 2023 by the non-profit Allbritton Journalism Institute, announced in a staff memo Monday that nine journalists were joining its newsroom, seven of whom had worked at the Post.

Dana Milbank, who had been a columnist at the Post for 26 years, released a lengthy statement praising NOTUS publisher Robert Allbritton, the son of the late financier and media mogul Joe Allbritton who previously co-founded Politico, while appearing to swipe The Post's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos.

"It feels wonderful to align myself with a public-spirited media owner who uses his billions to support journalism above all else, who isn't afraid to hold the powerful to account and who cares deeply about the Washington community," Milbank wrote.

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Jeff Stein, The Post's chief economics reporter, similarly expressed his excitement about joining NOTUS in June but offered a blunter jab at his soon-to-be former employer.

"I’ve loved so much of the last 9 years here, but my faith in the paper’s current leadership is broken beyond repair," Stein said.

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Other colleagues who are jumping ship for NOTUS include Post reporters Paul Kane, Paige Cunningham and Sam Fortier, columnist Andrew Van Dam and editor Missy Khamvongsa.

"These new additions – and many more to come – will join the talented journalists already working here as we transform NOTUS into a much larger publication that covers Washington at both the political and personal level," NOTUS wrote in the memo obtained by Fox News Digital. "In the coming months, we’ll launch this new version of NOTUS under a new name that better reflects the scope of the journalism we’re producing."

A spokesperson for The Washington Post told Fox News Digital, "We appreciate the contributions of our departing colleagues and wish them success in the next chapters of their careers."

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The "Democracy Dies in Darkness" paper has undergone newsroom turmoil and financial struggles in recent years.

In October 2024, just days before the presidential election, Bezos sparked liberal backlash for quashing the Post's expected endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He further inflamed newsroom tensions the following February by overhauling the paper's editorial pages. Both instances fueled an exodus of staffers and subscription cancellations.

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Last month, the Post implemented sweeping layoffs, impacting a third of all staffers. According to The New York Times, the paper suffered an additional 60,000 canceled subscriptions. A spokesperson for the Post disputed that figure to the Times.

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray previously acknowledged to Fox News Digital that "morale has been a challenge" but expressed confidence the paper will bounce back financially and his support for Bezos.