‘Washington Post’ reporter still working Olympics in Italy after being laid off: ‘People are still paying for the paper’

Washington Post reporter Les Carpenter knew this was a possibility when he hopped on a plane to Italy to cover the Winter Olympics, but knowing something is possible can’t prepare you for how it feels when it happens.

Carpenter is one of four staffers the Post sent to Milan after the paper initially told its Olympics team no one would be going to cover the Games at all, despite having already secured 14 credentials and outlaid $80,000 on accommodations. For weeks, reports have circulated that mass layoffs at the Post would likely decimate the storied sports desk. Unfortunately, those reports became a reality on Wednesday.

And as Chris Jones of the CBC reports, Carpenter and his colleague Rick Maese were informed of the news while in the Washington Post‘s section of the Main Media Center in Milan. Carpenter was let go. Maese was kept on.

But with the Games beginning in earnest on Friday, Carpenter isn’t going to let the circumstances impact what he flew all the way to Italy to do. “People are still paying for the paper,” he told the CBC. “They’re owed something.”

It’s equal parts admirable and heartbreaking. Carpenter is upholding the truest foundations of journalism, just when one of its storied institutions let him down. He’s there, in Italy, ready to tell the stories of incredible athletes to subscribers that will no longer help pay his salary. Why? Because that’s what they deserve. That’s why they pay for the paper.

It’s why the decision to shutter the sports desk makes no sense. Eliminating an entire vertical isn’t going to help the Post gain or retain subscribers. In fact, it’ll likely only accelerate the paper’s losses.

But at least for the next couple of weeks, Post readers will get some of the Olympics coverage they deserve. The same likely won’t be said in two years, when the Summer Olympics come to Los Angeles, or in four years, when the Winter Olympics head to France.