Washington Post’s Super Bowl coverage plans unclear as sports desk faces extinction

The Washington Post still hasn’t confirmed whether it will send reporters to cover Super Bowl LX in less than two weeks.

The newspaper planned to send three staffers to the game in Santa Clara, according to Natalie Korach of Status.News. But those scheduled to make the trip haven’t received assurance that coverage will proceed as planned. One staffer told Status that “it feels in the newsroom right now like [executive editor] Matt Murray and editors are fighting to save any scrap of the sports department.”

That fight may already be lost.

Multiple weeks of chaos have left staffers unsure what coverage priorities — if any — still exist at the paper, including Super Bowl LX coverage now hanging in the balance.

This all began when managing editor Kimi Yoshino sent a terse email to more than a dozen journalists on Jan. 24, canceling their plans to cover the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, just two weeks before the opening ceremony. The Post had already spent more than $80,000 on housing alone and secured 14 credentials for the games. After public criticism and internal revolt, Murray reversed course a few days later and agreed to send four reporters to Italy.

It didn’t stop there. The Post told Nationals beat writers Spencer Nusbaum and Andrew Golden not to book travel for spring training. The Post also informed Monumental Sports that it would no longer send reporters on the road to cover the Capitals, Wizards, or Mystics.

Those moves came against the backdrop of rumors, first reported by Puck’s Dylan Byers, that the sports desk could be shuttered entirely as part of massive newsroom layoffs expected to number in the hundreds. The foreign desk is also expected to face deep cuts.

It’s a remarkable fall for a section that once defined excellence in sports journalism. The Post sent reporters to every Olympics, covered local teams comprehensively, and broke national stories that moved the industry. Now it can’t say whether three people will go to the Super Bowl.

In the meantime, the reporters scheduled to cover the biggest sporting event of the year are waiting by the phone, hoping someone will tell them whether they’re actually going.