'Post Reports' cancelled amid massive layoffs

The Washington Post cut more than a third of its employees, including more than 300 of its 800 newsroom staff. We gather that their audio department has been "all but eliminated". The flagship podcast Post Reports is cancelled - and did not publish yesterday; the show reached almost half a million people a month, according to Podscribe. The host of the show, Martine Powers, is one of those affected; there are reports that the company has laid-off all but two staffers in their audio team (here are some of those affected). That audio team won two Peabody Awards in 2024; but in December, the newspaper made AI-generated podcasts that were "riddled with errors", but were reportedly launched even knowing that they were a bad experience. The newspaper, which broke the Watergate scandal, was purchased by Jeff Bezos in 2013.

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A new weekly news podcast in the Netherlands is to be entirely written, researched and fact-checked by AI. High Profile, a podcast made by Airborne Network, is human-hosted (at least, for now), but the company says that the "engaging" show provides depth and context to news. Today’s episode tells the story of Ayatollah Khamenei and the tensions within and around Iran.

Are you in the podcasting or audio industry in the UK? AudioUK is helping the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, with a new project examining the size and scale of the UK’s podcasting and audio industry. There's a short confidential survey for you to fill in by Tuesday.