Spencer Carbery started his press conference Thursday morning by acknowledging the reporter who wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Bailey Johnson, who covered the Capitals<\/a> for the Washington Post for the last two and a half years, was laid off on Wednesday as part of the mass layoffs<\/a> that effectively shuttered the Post\u2019s sports department.<\/p>\n \u201cI would be remiss not to say something about Bailey not being here today,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cGetting to know her over the last two and a half years, I\u2019m just thinking about her. And also know wherever her next stop is, whether it\u2019s in the DC area or somewhere else, know she\u2019ll do a fantastic job. She\u2019s an incredible person and really, really good at what she does.\u201d<\/p>\n #ALLCAPS<\/a> Coach Spencer Carbery started this morning\u2019s press conference by acknowledging @BaileyAJohnson_<\/a>, who said she is among the journalists caught up in WaPo\u2019s layoffs yesterday. \u201cI would be remiss not to say something about Bailey not being here today. Getting to know her\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 Tarik El-Bashir (@Tarik_ElBashir) February 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Johnson announced the layoff on X on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the Post began sending individual emails to staffers informing them they\u2019d lost their jobs.<\/p>\n I was among the layoffs at @washingtonpost<\/a> today. It has been an absolute dream to be a small part of this incredible team. Covering the Caps has been an honor; being a beat writer is an all-consuming thing that I love deeply. I hope I\u2019ll get to continue that in whatever is next<\/p>\n \u2014 Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) February 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n The Post had covered the Capitals since the team\u2019s inaugural season in 1974. That relationship ended Wednesday morning when executive editor Matt Murray told employees on a Zoom call that the sports department would be closing in its current form.<\/p>\n Johnson responded to Carbery\u2019s comments later Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so lucky to spend my time here covering a coach as kind, generous with his time and sincere as Spencer Carbery,\u201d Johnson wrote. \u201cI learned from him every day, and it was a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n I was so lucky to spend my time here covering a coach as kind, generous with his time and sincere as Spencer Carbery. I learned from him every day, and it was a gift. https:\/\/t.co\/LAf0uV2TDu<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) February 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n The layoffs on Wednesday affected roughly one-third of the Post\u2018s staff. The sports department took the heaviest losses. Murray told employees that a handful of reporters would move to the features department to cover sports as a \u201ccultural and societal phenomenon,\u201d meaning they\u2019ll write about sports when something intersects with politics or social issues, but won\u2019t necessarily cover games. A few employees would remain to work on the print sports section. The rest were out.<\/p>\n Johnson was one of dozens of sports staffers<\/a> who lost their jobs. The casualties included NFL writer Mark Maske, Commanders reporters Tashan Reed and Tom Schad, Nationals beat writers Andrew Golden and Spencer Nusbaum, college sports reporter Jesse Dougherty, columnist Candace Buckner, NBA writer Ben Golliver, enterprise reporter Sam Fortier, sports media reporter Ben Strauss, and sports investigative reporters Will Hobson and Molly Hensley-Clancy.<\/p>\n The layoffs followed weeks of cost-cutting that made Wednesday\u2019s outcome feel inevitable. A few weeks ago, according to Puck\u2019s John Ourand<\/a>, the Post informed Monumental Sports that it would no longer send reporters \u2014 including Johnson \u2014 on the road<\/a> to cover the Capitals, Wizards, or Mystics.<\/p>\n The consequences of eliminating that coverage played out on Wednesday afternoon when the Wizards acquired Anthony Davis from the Mavericks in one of the biggest trades in franchise history. The Post\u2019s coverage\u00a0 \u2014 if you can even call it that<\/a> \u2014 consisted of a single Associated Press article that didn\u2019t appear on the website until more than seven hours after the trade was reported. That\u2019s likely what Capitals coverage looks like now without Johnson, which Carbery was pretty much acknowledging when he opened his press conference by talking about her.<\/p>\n \t