The Post’s editor-in-chief resigned while a boss was targeted in the paper’s columns
New York:
The prestigious Washington Post is in crisis, with pressure from owner Jeff Bezos to change the way it loses money.
The Post’s editor-in-chief abruptly resigned; a chosen successor retired under attack and a chief was targeted in newspaper columns.
At the center of the storm is the new CEO of “WaPo”, the British William Lewis, who was given a mission by Amazon founder Bezos when he appointed him last fall.
Lewis was asked to turn around a newspaper that continues to rack up Pulitzer Prizes half a century after the Watergate scandal it instigated, but which has lost $77 million in 2023 despite job cuts and the disappearance of its Sunday supplement.
However, the former journalist, who made history in the late 2000s with a scoop on British MPs’ expenses when he was editor of the Daily Telegraph, is finding his position increasingly vulnerable.
For weeks now, revelations have been multiplying about his role, when he worked for the Murdoch family’s conservative media group, around 12 years ago, in a scandal involving illegal wiretapping of the tabloid The News of the World.
On Friday, Lewis was at the center of an investigation led by his own journalists.
According to the Washington Post, he gave the green light in 2011 for the destruction of thousands of emails, fueling suspicions that he was destroying evidence, which he denies.
“Trump Boom”
As the US presidential election approaches, the case is poisoning the atmosphere of a long-vaunted newspaper that is “not doing well economically,” Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, told AFP.
The Post was among the trusted media outlets that benefited from the turmoil that marked Trump’s four years in the White House, which ended with his defeat to President Joe Biden.
The Post “was seen as a place that offered really tough and truthful coverage” of Trump, according to the professor.
Trump’s departure from the White House meant fewer attention-grabbing stories to keep readers engaged.
“When Donald Trump left the White House, the Trump momentum that helped many newspapers disappeared,” Kennedy said.
“And the Post was hit especially hard.”
By the end of 2022, the Post would have 2.5 million subscribers, compared to 3 million subscribers when Biden took office in early 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, rival New York Times has grown to more than 10 million subscribers, the result of a strategy to diversify into fun topics like gaming, food and lifestyle while also offering important news.
US media quoted Lewis as telling editorial staff in early June that he “can’t sugarcoat any more” – the paper has lost a lot of money and people’s interest in its articles.
Third news team
The day before that editorial meeting, Post journalists learned of editor-in-chief Sally Buzbee’s resignation.
Buzbee is said to have disagreed with Lewis’ strategy of dividing the editorial department into three divisions: news, opinion and a new third unit dedicated to social media and service journalism.
The contours of this “third editorial” remain unclear, but it seems to aim to revive the readership, in a leap into the unknown of the newspaper.
Within the Murdoch family group, Lewis was the head of the Wall Street Journal (2014-2020), another flagship of the North American press.
However, articles in the New York Times and the Post pointed to questionable methods employed under his watch and that of former colleague Robert Winnett, whom Lewis chose to replace Buzbee.
Published allegations include paying informants, using data from hacked phones, or intermediaries using false identification to obtain information.
Winnett withdrew from consideration for the position following these revelations.
Professor Kennedy believes that Lewis has no choice but to leave the Post because he has lost the trust of the staff there.
“The body is rejecting the transfusion,” Post veteran David Maraniss wrote on his Facebook page, adding that he doesn’t know anyone who thinks the situation can stay as it is.
“If he fails to inspire the team (…) the Post will sail without direction and its best employees will leave,” Kennedy said of Lewis.
For many observers, the outcome of the crisis lies in the hands of billionaire Bezos, who bought the Post for $250 million in 2013.
So far, Bezos has supported his CEO.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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