In Will Lewis’ first year at ‘Washington Post,’ readers and staffers flee : NPR

One debacle after one other has engulfed The Washington Submit since veteran newspaper government Will Lewis grew to become CEO and writer a 12 months in the past this month, with the cost from proprietor Jeff Bezos to make the storied newspaper financially sustainable.

The appointment of a brand new government editor was botched. A killed presidential endorsement led a whole lot of 1000’s of subscribers to cancel. Prime reporters and editors left. Scandals involving Lewis’ actions as a information government years in the past within the U.Okay. reemerged. A transparent imaginative and prescient to safe the Submit’s monetary future stays elusive.

Frustration boiled over on Tuesday night time. Greater than 400 Submit journalists, together with some editors, signed a petition asking Bezos to intervene.

“We’re deeply alarmed by current management choices which have led readers to query the integrity of this establishment, damaged with a convention of transparency, and prompted a few of our most distinguished colleagues to go away,” it reads, partially.

The petition by no means cites Lewis by title, nevertheless it reads as a pointy indictment of his management. Via a spokesperson, Lewis and the Submit declined remark for this story. A consultant of Bezos didn’t return a request for remark.

For this story, NPR interviewed 10 Washington Submit staffers contained in the newsroom and on the enterprise facet of the paper, together with some who didn’t signal the petition. They agreed to talk to NPR beneath situation of anonymity for worry of repercussions contained in the paper.

They are saying the backlash in opposition to Lewis encompasses Bezos to a point, as he has publicly warmed as much as President-elect Donald Trump. (The Submit declined remark.)

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Submit, spoke in the course of the New York Occasions DealBook summit in December. “I am happy with the choice we made, and it was removed from cowardly,” he stated of his determination to not let the newspaper endorse Vice President Kamala Harris earlier than the election.

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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America

Bezos’ determination to kill a deliberate endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris simply days earlier than the November election led greater than 300,000 subscribers to cancel, wiping out rather more modest beneficial properties The Submit had achieved beneath Lewis. (A spokesperson says The Submit has satisfied about 20% of these cancelling over the endorsement to stay subscribers.)

The choice additionally led to some resignations. Latest days on the Submit have witnessed the continuation of a months-long parade of exits of extremely regarded newsroom veterans — most lately, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rosalind Helderman, investigative reporter Josh Dawsey and columnist Jennifer Rubin. Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit after her sketch exhibiting Bezos kneeling earlier than Trump with a bag of cash was rejected.

The tech titan’s enterprise pursuits, together with Amazon Internet Companies and the house firm Blue Origin, obtain billions of {dollars} from federal contracts. He is given $1 million towards Trump’s inauguration prices and traveled to Mar-a-Lago together with his fiancée to fulfill with the president-elect. Amazon Studios agreed to pay Melania Trump tens of millions of {dollars} for a documentary undertaking about her, according to Puck News. Come Monday, Bezos is predicted to affix Trump advisor Elon Musk and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg on the inauguration platform itself.

After blocking publication of the Submit‘s endorsement of Harris, Bezos admitted that he, together with his many enterprises, was a “complexifier” for the paper. However he stated these pursuits had nothing to do together with his determination, as an alternative pointing to plummeting public belief within the media.

“We should work tougher to manage what we will management to extend our credibility,” Bezos wrote in an opinion piece for the Submit. “By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is just not sufficient to maneuver us very far up the belief scale, nevertheless it’s a significant step in the best route.”

The Submit‘s reporting, from the Pentagon Papers to Watergate to January 6, locations it among the many pantheon of significant American journalistic establishments. However it’s a diminished outlet on the eve of Trump’s second inauguration.

Bezos was seen because the paper’s savior when he bought it in 2013 and as a champion of journalism in the course of the first Trump time period. Many individuals on the Submit retain hope that Bezos will assist the paper return to type. The petition states that the query of the presidential endorsement is “the proprietor’s prerogative.”

But it asks for Bezos’s renewed deal with the paper.

“We perceive the necessity for change and we’re wanting to ship the information in modern methods,” the letter states. “However we’d like a transparent imaginative and prescient we will consider in.”

Lewis’ conservative credentials attraction to Bezos

Lewis’ file on the Wall Road Journal — he had been its writer and chief government — appealed to Bezos. The Journal’s digital subscriptions soared throughout his tenure, enabling it to search out agency footing.

Challenges on the Submit, in distinction, had been mounting. In late 2023, on the eve of Lewis’ arrival, the Submit bought out 10 percent of its workforce.

Moreover, as Trump’s return to Washington appeared extra possible, Lewis additionally appealed to Bezos due to his ease in dealing with conservative figures. This account is derived from two individuals with direct information of Bezos’ pondering who spoke on the situation that they weren’t named, as they weren’t licensed to debate the matter publicly.

Lewis had been editor of the conservative Telegraph newspaper in London, carefully aligned with the Tory occasion. The Journal is managed by Rupert Murdoch, for whom Lewis additionally labored within the U.Okay. And through a break between media jobs, Lewis had consulted for then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

On the Submit, Lewis initially loved a heat welcome. He charmed his new colleagues and promised to show issues round. That attraction soured over revelations he had repeatedly pressured then-Govt Editor Sally Buzbee to not cowl damning allegations about his work for Murdoch in London greater than a decade in the past. Lewis had previously pressured NPR to not report its story that had initially drawn Buzbee’s consideration.

Lewis has rejected the allegations. He additionally has denied inappropriately pressuring Buzbee and known as me “an activist, not a journalist.”

Buzbee left final spring; Lewis’s selection for government editor, a former colleague, ran aground in June on tough scrutiny of ethical questions surrounding the journalism they did collectively within the U.Okay.

Reporters say Lewis snapped at them throughout a contentious city corridor early that month, telling them that the paper had misplaced $100 million in 2022 and $77 million in 2023. He instructed writers that they wanted to vary how they did their jobs, as individuals weren’t studying their work.

Final 12 months, the paper was on monitor to chop that annual loss to $50 million. That determine shot again as much as $100 million after the mass subscriber cancellations final fall.

Stars hit the exits as newsroom leaders squirm 

Govt Editor Matt Murray and Editorial Web page Editor David Shipley repeatedly discover themselves in troublesome positions.

Shipley knowledgeable Telnaes that her depiction of Bezos and different media and tech billionaires exhibiting fealty to Trump would not run. Telnaes, who stop, tells NPR she all the time accepts enhancing however had by no means beforehand been instructed she could not handle a selected matter. In a observe to colleagues, Shipley stated the sketch overlapped an excessive amount of with two opinion columns addressing the identical topic.

In response to 4 individuals with information, Murray has set a coverage that the paper should not report tales about itself, together with controversies and departures, although it has beforehand completed so completely. (They spoke on situation of anonymity due to worry of repercussions.)

“They’re compromised,” former Submit columnist Jennifer Rubin, who resigned this week after greater than 14 years, tells NPR about newsroom leaders. “Journalism is just not about balancing the monetary pursuits of your proprietor in opposition to your journalistic obligations.”

Shipley declined remark. Murray has not responded to prior requests for remark. Rubin left to create a brand new website, known as The Contrarian, to supply accountability journalism on the upcoming Trump administration.

Murray, who led the Journal newsroom beneath Lewis, was delivered to Washington by Lewis final 12 months. Murray instructed staffers he’ll proceed to run the Submit‘s information facet however that has not but been introduced publicly.

Regardless of all of the clashes and turmoil, the paper has continued to win kudos for its work. It has taken initiatives to combine cutting-edge synthetic intelligence instruments into its journalism and its expertise for readers. New leaders have been named for an innovation hub rechristened as WP Ventures. The paper has made a few of its personal spectacular hires, together with reporters from the Journal and Politico. And Murray has added a brand new senior requirements editor place, hiring a former prime Journal editor. 

But the paper lately lower one other 4% of its workers, all on the enterprise facet. That included 73 positions in promoting, according to the New York Times. Staffers ask how improvements propelling new revenues are to realize traction with out extra funding.

Chief Technique Officer Suzi Watford, a former SiriusXM government who additionally beforehand labored for Lewis on the Journal, has been collaborating with senior leaders for months to refine the Submit‘s mission for the present age.

She is alleged to be constructing on the seven core principles set out by Eugene Meyer, the paper’s owner in 1935.

Amongst Meyer’s core rules: “The newspaper’s responsibility is to its readers and to the general public at giant, and to not the non-public pursuits of its homeowners.”