• by Sara Guaglione , December 21, 2020

The Washington Postis expanding globally. The publisher is creating breaking news hubs in London and Seoul to cover live news in the U.S. and around the world, especially while it’s nighttime in Washington, D.C.

“In creating the breaking-news hubs, WaPo will be able to operate energetically and rapidly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a particular emphasis on the live coverage of major stories that has become a growing part of our storytelling arsenal through a year dominated by pandemic, protests and politics,” according to a company statement.

WaPo is creating 19 jobs for this initiative, divided between the two hubs in Europe and Asia. 

Each hub will have four breaking news reporters and two breaking news editors, as well as a visuals editor, an audience editor and at least one multiplatform editor. 

The newspaperwill also establish new foreign bureaus in Sydney, Australia and Bogotá, Colombia. That brings its locations to 26 worldwide.

The new hubs are part of a broader expansion at the newspaper in 2021, which will increase the newsroom’s overall staff by 44 journalists. When all positions are filled, its newsroom will grow to a record high of more than 1,000 staffers, according to an internal memo from Fred Ryan, publisher-CEO of the newspaper.

WaPo will also expand its coverage of personal technology in 2021, adding eight reporters and editors to a tech team that has increased to 19 journalists in the last several years. The newsroom’s audience team also will add four new staffers.

“Readers will get journalism that is richer, deeper, faster, more wide-ranging and more innovative,” stated Marty Baron, executive editor.

The Washington Post has more than 3 million digital subscribers.