Yesterday, in a dismal morning Zoom call, the Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, announced that they were laying off one-third of its already diminished staff. The follow-up email had the tone of robotic obfuscation that any decent editor would have rewritten. (“Following up on today’s communication, I’m writing to share the difficult news that your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes.”) It’s of course painful, as a journalist, to see fellow journalists get laid off. It’s painful, for anyone alert to the moment, to know that one of the last remaining expert watchdogs is hobbled. It’s maybe most painful to know it could have been avoided.