Every day, it seems, another top-notch journalist leaves The Washington Post.
But on Wednesday, with all due respect to the number of extremely talented people who have already left, the Post suffered its biggest loss yet. Sally Jenkins, who just might be the best sports columnist in the country, announced she has accepted a buyout.
And she did it with a memo written so well that it could win an award, showing again just how massively talented she is. Dan Steinberg, a former Post sportswriter who is now an editor at The Athletic, tweeted, “Sally Jenkins's goodbye note is, like, better than anything I have ever written.”
He was hardly alone.
In her note, Jenkins wrote, “So, it’s with a spear in my heart that I separate from you, my adored friends and colleagues.”
The good news is she is not closing up her computer. She is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer focusing on sports.
But this is devastating news for the Post, which has hemorrhaged elite reporters, columnists and editors — mostly because of new policies put in place by owner Jeff Bezos — over the past several months. The Post recently offered another round of buyouts, and many have accepted.
As the Post’s excellent national baseball writer, Chelsea Janes, tweeted, “Can’t relate to most things players go through, but last few months taught me new empathy for those who watch their team torn down around them for reasons they don’t fully understand. It’s devastating. And @SallyJenki is latest gut punch, a moral compass for the sports world.”
Post sportswriter Gene Wang tweeted, “It is impossible to quantify how much @SallyJenki has meant not just to @PostSports but the entire industry. An unrivaled wordsmith and unfailingly supportive colleague whose company made us all better. Cheers to the next chapter!”
Jenkins took the high road by showing her gratitude for the Post.
Jenkins wrote in her note, “The Washington Post has given me most of what I have in this life, both materially and in pride of purpose. I came to work here at a very unfinished 24 years old, and this place made me. Taught me, chiseled me, formed whatever is good and integral in the work. In 30 years, I’ve not had a single, unhappy moment in the newsroom.”
Jenkins arrived at the Post already part of sportswriting royalty. Her father, the late Dan Jenkins, was an iconic sportswriter and author who wrote for Sports Illustrated and penned the classic book, “Semi-Tough,” which was turned into a movie starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh. He was considered the best golf writer in the country, and certainly among the greatest sportswriters ever.
And yet many, including me, would argue that Sally Jenkins went on to surpass her father. Jenkins’ moral compass, as Janes mentioned, as well as her unflinching bravery to take on any person, league or institution was unmatched. She can pull off the rare accomplishment of being brutally critical without taking what feels like cheap shots.
Typically, if Jenkins blasts you, you have it coming.
But she isn’t known just for her fastball. She can write with empathy, compassion and intellect. It’s why she has been named the top sports columnist in the country seven times by the Associated Press Sports Editors, including as recently as 2021. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary in 2020.
In 2022, she was named the recipient of the Red Smith Award, which is just about the highest honor in sports journalism. It’s given by the APSE for “major contributions to sports journalism.” Aside from working at the Post, Jenkins also wrote for Sports Illustrated in the early 1990s.
While many see this as the Post losing another valuable columnist, Jenkins insisted in her classy note that it was more about where she was going, not what she was leaving. She wrote, “All of which is to say I’m not leaving out of unhappiness. I’m leaving for an opportunity — the only other job I ever coveted in this world, at The Atlantic Monthly. I have a weakness for literary pursuits, and it got me.”
In a note to staff, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, called Jenkins “one of the legends of American journalism.” He added, “Sally is quite possibly America’s greatest living sportswriter — and more generally one of the best feature writers working today.”
And, again, this cannot be stressed enough, her farewell letter to the Post was superb and full of grace. She closed by writing:
I will so miss the sweat, the adventure, and the unruly carping and bitching that hides our bone-deep devotion to the craft, and to this place.
I see the glimmer of a new Washington Post — one that moves. It has to be right-sized, and young trees planted, but when the clocks all start chiming at the same time, it will be glorious. I believe that and you should too.
And I will be applauding you until my hands hurt.
