The shuttering of the Washington Post sports section is a watershed moment in the continued decline of the traditional media ecosystem. And it is a move that has been met with sadness across the sports media universe, even from new media stars like Pablo Torre.
In many ways, Torre represents the new wave of how to do journalism in an era where podcasts have replaced newscasts and headlines are read on social media instead of newspapers. His videos and podcasts have broken major news in the last year and he continues to pursue stories that few others have the space and depth to explore.
Much of Torre’s focus on his podcast has been on holding the powerful to account, whether it’s Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and the shady Aspiration sponsorship deal with Kawhi Leonard or more recently Grizzlies owner Robert Pera’s links to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
And the main issue that Pablo Torre sees is the loss of a massively important institution at the Washington Post that has been able to hold people accountable both inside and outside of the sports world.
“This is Tony Kornheiser. This is Michael Wilbon. This is David Remnick. … What you’re losing is another place where people can get accountability.”
—@PabloTorre on the state of journalism, amidst cuts at The Washington Post and CBS News pic.twitter.com/2QNLCS7EYq
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) January 29, 2026
“What you’re losing is another place where people can get accountability, where people can get reporting that is ostensibly uncompromised by the incentives that are otherwise crawling over sports media. And that’s the same of it,” Torre said.
“What I mourn is the loss of another newsroom that had infrastructure and collective experience and expertise that no longer is being funded. The question of like, what can we mourn here as a matter of how f—– it is, is that there are these administrations now with the CEOs included for whom they are, they’re not standing up for the thing that their institution that they’re trying to save now was most distinguished by, which is to say the quality and the necessity of the journalists.”
The loss of those journalists as owner Jeff Bezos has performed a journalistic lobotomy on one of the most historically influential and uncompromising pillars of the fourth estate. In its place is a formless, shapeless amoeba that seeks to stay in line with whatever the overlords of society deem is appropriate.
While that may open up more room for independent new media like Pablo Torre to fill the void, it’s also a huge net negative for anyone that hopes to see media institutions do their job and fight back against the chipping away of fairness and justice in society. And it’s not just the Washington Post sports section either, it’s also the total transformation of CBS News and Paramount under Bari Weiss and the Ellisons.
“This is I think good for the business of PTFO but horrific for our country. It’s bad. It’s bad! When you lose these players and you have people who are running the companies making compromises to favor administrations that are looking for more favorable coverage, which brings in Bari Weiss as a character, which brings in the Ellisons… there are no checks on those transactions anymore,” Torre stated.
While the Washington Post hasn’t yet completely shuttered their sports department as was initially feared (at least not yet), it seems like it’s just another step in the destruction of the paper’s reputation and significance. And with media institutions succumbing to either political pressure or monetary influences, there’s sadly no end in sight to the current trend of destruction.
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